


Disgrace of Redcliffe

by Sunruner



Series: Warden Guerrin [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Abusive Parents, Ace Connor, Agency is a big issue, Amaranthine (Dragon Age), Antivan Crows, Drug Abuse, Every happy chapter has a corresponding bad chapter just saying that now, Genevieve Bouclier, I cannot believe Carver/Connor isn't already a tag on this site, Kidnapping, Lots of OCs - Freeform, Multi, Nobles Behaving Badly, Redcliffe, She gets a tag none of the other OCs do, There is a dragon, Vigil's Keep, and a lot of demons, get ready for world building ok, no deep roads this time yay good job connor, no love triangles, this is why you don't give FFN authors tagging privileges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 53
Words: 380,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7116646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunruner/pseuds/Sunruner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor Guerrin is a Grey Warden in service to the Warden Commander and Hero of Ferelden, Arl of Amaranthine, the Master of Vigil's Keep. The Vigil is the rock the Fereldan Grey Wardens tether their lives to as they serve both their Commander and their country alongside Amaranthine's Silver Order. They find the strength and peace to walk proudly to the Maker from her doorstep, faithful that their Commander will guard and keep them safe from political squabbles and courtly rivalries. Connor may have a new life, but if his family has their way- will he keep it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The Grey Wardens of Thedas had existed as an order since their founding during the First Blight, back centuries before Andraste and her Chant of Light. Five Archdemons had rampaged only to fall on the blade of a Warden in the end, and though their hellish forms appeared decades and often centuries apart, the effects of the last Blight, twelve years ago, were still being felt in Thedas today. It was a long and decorated history, and it came as no surprise that theirs’ was a brotherhood of many secrets and even greater sacrifices.

Chief among them today: Connor Guerrin’s patience.

“Are you going to buy it or not?” Because whether or not anyone chose to believe it, Connor Guerrin, Mage of the College of Enchanters, ex-son of the Arl of Denerim and disgraced nephew to the Arl of Redcliffe, was a Grey Warden. And he was about to go off on his brother-in-arms in the middle of a Val Royeaux market. “Hawke. It’s been an hour. The others are already done their shopping!”

“But it’s such a waste of coin, isn’t it?” Warden Carver Hawke asked him, and Connor was ready to put his hands around the warrior’s thick neck. “Who really needs this much gold on a book?”

“Maker’s Breath, Hawke, just buy it.” Connor told him.

The summer sun over Val Royeaux was nothing compared to the blistering heat of the last four months out in the Western Approach, but it was still too warm and thick to go running around in full gear. Grey Wardens also weren’t too highly thought of in Orlais after the chaos of Corypheus’ rampage. Hawke had left his silverite plates and sword behind at the inn where the Wardens had spent the night, wearing a long, mean-looking dagger at the belt of his dark blue tunic. His gauntlets he had tucked into his belt, black trousers a sin in the heat but the only thing he had, his greaves removed and his boots looking blistered and tired from the many miles.

The months of sun had burned deep red pads of colour across Hawke’s hands, over the bridge of his crooked nose, and down the back of his neck. He’d complained about the possibility of shaving his black hair away completely to get it to stop soaking up the heat, but had been wisely talked down by the prospect of having his scalp burn away without the protection.

Beside him, Connor was by far the more miserable for their time in the desert. For a healer he’d done a wretched job caring for his face before leaving Ferelden and a horrible memory had burned the skin across his eyes months ago. He’d mended what he’d had the time to think about in the deep roads: his eyes themselves, his lids, brows and lashes and the rest of the important parts, but he’d forgotten the _skin_.

The sun had darkened him and bleached his auburn hair until it was nearly white at the ends, but it had stubbornly avoided his eyes. He looked like someone had peeled the brown away in a band, or perhaps they’d thrown chalk at him, and he felt like an idiot any time someone on the road or in the city stared out right at him. Aside from his idiot scars he felt normal enough though, and after the desert he had no issue wearing a pale blue jerkin and shirt over his own trousers and sand-blasted boots.

“What _now?_ ” Connor griped, watching Hawke fuss again and look back at what he was holding.

“I don’t need an Orlesian copy.” He admitted, almost timid.

“I thought you said your _mother’s_ copy was written in Orlesian?” There were over ten years seniority between them but if Hawke did not cut it out Connor was going to lose his mind.

In Hawke’s hand was a thick green book whose ornate cover was webbed with shining gold leaf. The cover alone was a work of art. The pages, which Hawke had flipped through several times looking for any kind of flaw with the binding, the lettering, the glue, the threads, the _smell_ , were soft high-quality paper with illuminated chapter faces and thick black and red in scrawled throughout. It was the epic ballad “ _Ride of the Chevaliers”_ , a cornerstone of Orlesian folk-tales and songs and according to Hawke it was one of the few books his mother had used to teach her three children how to read. Connor had spent his early life in Ferelden’s Circle of Magi, he knew a well-made book when he saw one, and Hawke had touched this book and no other at the stall they were _still_ standing in front of.

“This one’s both, I mean.” Hawke explained, something Connor already knew because _an hour, Hawke, they had been here an hour_. “King’s Trade on the one side and Orlesian on the opposite-”

“Then you get two copies instead of one: you can read the Trade and just call the other one pretty.”

“That’s not the point.” He argued and then worried his lips together. He abruptly put the book back on the stall. It was not the first time he had done so. The bookseller had grown so fed up with Hawke that he was barely paying attention any more.

“Hawke.”

“No.” Was the rebuttal. “No! I have books at Vigil’s Keep, and they go for less than this in Amaranthine. I’ll just read _Lost in Lowtown_ again for the voyage back.” It was over a _month_ by ship from Val Royeaux to Amaranthine harbour at this time of year. The original voyage from Highever to Orlais had involved the company’s one copy of _Lost in Lowtown_ being read by every Grey Warden in the hold, on their own, _twice._

“Buy the stupid book, Hawke.” Connor told him again.

“It’s too expensive, no.”

“Do you know how much Nathaniel’s spent on fabric for his sister’s family since yesterday?” A lot. The answer was a lot. They were on their way home and for the senior wardens it would be their first time seeing home in half a year. For Connor and the fifth member of their company, the Orlesian Warden Bouclier, their first time. “Oghren spent half of what he earned in the Approach on soap. Oghren. With soap. Think about it.” Hawke scoffed.

“Don’t get your hopes up, it’s not for him.” The other warden worked his way up to a smile, crooked, but present. “Felsi just likes the purple one, whatever it is. If we’re making comparisons then Genevieve bought wine and something from a jeweler, but what about you?” Hawke pointed quickly over Connor’s shoulder and the mage knew better than to follow the direction because it would make him look _stupid_ and he fell for it _enough_ as it was.

“Still missing something.” Hawke grinned, and Connor felt himself go sour.

“I still can’t believe the nerve of that thing…” He grumbled.

“Be thankful the dragon ate the staff and not the mage attached to it.” Connor was not thankful, Connor was bitter.

“No one will ever believe that story.”

“The commander will.” Hawke tried to cheer him up with a sharp slap on the shoulder. “Come on, lets go meet the others. I’m done here.”

“You go ahead.” Connor told him. “He has several books on poultices here and I want to flip through them again. Get one for the boat.”

“They’ll all be in Orlesian.” Hawke cautioned.

“Genevieve wants me to practice mine anyways.” The Captain was dead set on getting him back to fluency with a language he hadn’t spoken since he was ten. “Might as well learn something useful while I’m at it.”

“Suit yourself.” Hawke cast one final mourning look back at the ballad on the stall and finally tore himself away. “Meet you at the inn, Guerrin.”

As soon as the other Grey Warden was gone, Connor pulled out his money.

“ _Five sovereigns._ ” The seller immediately told him in Orlesian, speaking from behind a polished copper mask. Captain Bouclier’s language practice hadn’t been an entire waste.

“ _If you don’t sell it to me,”_ Connor said in tired, grumpy, but moderately well-spoken Orlesian, “ _You will have to see him every time we come to Val Royeaux._ ”

“ _He is not so ugly for a dog-lord.”_ The merchant rebuked. “ _Five sovereigns, mage.”_

Connor paid up and swore Hawke would never touch the damn book so long as either of them lived.

Two weeks later, locked in the now-rank hold of a ship sailing east to Ferelden, if _Ride of the Chevaliers_ wasn’t being read out-loud by Hawke then it was wrapped up and tucked safely in the other Warden’s saddle bags. Connor could have been bitter, but at least none of them had to suffer through another reading of _Lowtown_ against their will. He curled up with his head and shoulders on his own saddlebags and tried to sleep the voyage away.

Four weeks in a small hold only about thirty feet wide and fifteen deep would be enough to drive any well-adjusted, sedentary person insane. For five Grey Wardens used to walking and riding over thirty miles a day, the ship was claustrophobic. Even Connor, who had spent so much of his life in a tower and a cramped medical tent, found himself beating his feet on the wooden walls at times just to mimic the feel of walking.

“We should have walked…” Nathaniel Howe, the company’s acting second in command, complained every day of the crossing as part of his afternoon routine. The lieutenant kept mostly to his hanging cot at one end of the hold, whittling wooden totems and planks to chips in a constant effort to steer off the madness of boredom.

“Dwarves weren’t meant to float…” Constable Oghren, red haired, vulgar, and their acting first officer, kept himself perpetually drunk while on board. He was frequently ill for no fault of the liquor and none of Connor’s herbs or the crew’s remedies could keep the dwarf’s stomach settled for more than a few hours. He was resistant to anything green Connor tried to feed him, but surprisingly good-natured about all the failed attempts.

“The fresh air would do you all some good.” Captain Genevieve Bouclier, a black woman formerly under Orlesian Warden Commander Clarel’s banner, was the Company’s acting third. The Captain spent much of her time on the fairer days up on deck under the sun, a place Connor would not venture because he was desperate for his tan to vanish before they reached Ferelden. Genevieve ignored her armour and weapons for the voyage, and when she deigned to stay below decks in the hold she would quickly give in to her own competitive nature. “Hawke!”

And so did Hawke.

Push-ups with one or both hands. Sit-ups on the floor, or with knees hooked over one of the sturdy beams keeping the ship in form. Pull-ups from the same beam. They never challenged each other for anything under fifty and usually went many times beyond that number before becoming too tired, forgetting the wager, and falling asleep on their respective gear. Several times Nathaniel and Connor himself were dragged into their competitions just to stave off the boredom from another hand of diamond back. There was literally _nothing else to do_.

A complete ban on magic should not have been that difficult for Connor to follow, but it was. Magic was frightening, dangerous, and often put to foolish uses. Before joining the Wardens Connor had rarely touched the caustic fire licking at his insides more than a few times in a month, but in the months since then it had become a constant thing. Light a fire, _douse_ a fire, check for enemies, make sure something that hurt wasn’t actually injured, heal something that was _very_ injured. Give light in the dark, send a signal to another point in formation, provide aid against exhaustion or immediate attack. Just… conjure something in his hand for the sheer hell of being bored and needing something to focus on except being bored.

The captain of this ship _hated_ magic. The company had side-eyed the entire prospect of getting on board when the man had openly suggested having Connor hog-tied and locked in a different part of the ship from the others. Connor himself had been torn between wanting to find another ship or setting the man’s hat on fire. He’d done neither. Nathaniel had later told him that if he ever felt threatened, the Lieutenant would make short work of the issue and that threat had actually given Connor enough confidence to board the ship at all. If Nathaniel Howe threatened to stab someone, he’d do it.

But no magic meant at least nine out of any ten things Connor had done on the original voyage to Orlais were now out of the question. He was worried about just tracing glyphs in case the man looked down through the grate that lit and ventilated the hold and see him drawing lines and immediately have him keel-hauled.

So he played cards, and counted push-ups, and tried to sleep through as much of the voyage as was humanly possible. By the end of the fourth week his cabin fever was no better than Hawke’s or Genevieve’s: he wanted out of here _now_.

Finally, finally, finally, with the Western Approach and its darkspawn canyon nearly a thousand miles behind them, they arrived at the port city of Amaranthine.

“Will anyone be there to meet us?” Connor asked as the city’s walls and harbour began to form in the pale dawn mist. The one good thing about ships was that they didn’t stop for the night, meaning the ship didn’t furl her sails or bother slowing down at all until she swept around the breakers of the harbour’s western lip and in to the shoulder of Ferelden standing on the edge of the Amaranthine Ocean.

“Doubt it.” Nathaniel answered next to him in the early gloom. The wind reeked of salt and fish but land was coming closer. There was wood smoke on the wind now, there was refuse in the harbour’s dark waters. “But the Commander’s last letter said there will be horses for us with the city guard. Probably even the ones we left in Highever.”

Connor tried not to show how high his heart rose with the news. All of them had been disappointed when the Warden Commander of Ferelden had sent word that he would not join them in Orlais, but Connor had felt especially lost. He’d only had a few weeks training as a battle mage before his Joining and then immediate assignment to Orlais. Not having the Archmage around to guide him had been frightening.

But they’d all survived the Approach, and Connor felt like he’d been useful out there too. Maybe things had turned out for the best in the end?

They gathered their horses from the stables at the Bann of Amaranthine’s manor later that morning. Solid ground felt so good under his feet and the noise and smells of a Ferelden city, even one he’d never been to before, lifted his heart. Nothing had felt as real as this before. Once Oghren finished stamping an official document with his signet ring Connor felt his heart soar at the sight of the mounts waiting for them. He picked which one he wanted immediately, because she was his.

“I missed you,” He whispered quietly to the familiar face of Issan, a chestnut Ferelden Foarder with wise black eyes and blankets cut with Warden grey and blue. He was overjoyed when the horse mouthed pleasantly at his open palmed when he approached, and she was patient as he saddled and readied her for the ride out of the city. “But you would _not_ have liked Orlais.”

They weren’t going to waste time in Amaranthine. Vigil’s Keep was the home of the Grey Wardens and the seat of Warden Commander Surana’s power in the region. It was the home the three senior wardens longed to see again and in the early morning light they moved as quickly as five horses could through foot-traffic and the congestion of summer wagons. As soon as the crowd near the city gates began to thin and melt away, they mounted up and were on the road at a brisk pace.

The horses were up for the exercise and rolled smoothly from canter to run and back again. Apparently Oghren wanted to reach the Keep before noon and Hawke fell into a regaling description of the fortress that awaited them. The great hall, the kitchens, the barracks, the warden apartments, the baths, the Commander’s office: he walked them through the keep and made it sound like a miniature Denerim.

“ _My own bed_ ,” Hawke ended off with a whimsical, almost desperate cry. “Oh Maker, I can’t believe we’re so close. I’m going to sleep like the _dead_.”

“You’ve been sleeping for a month!” Genevieve gasped at him, her armour shining like his as they rode fast and light over the fine road and under the sun.

“Not in my own _bed_ I haven’t!” Hawke laughed, and then heeled his horse to get it running again. Connor let his horse keep pace with the two warriors, Nathaniel and Oghren quickly speeding up ahead of them so the company maintained its loose order between the rolling fields of green farmland.

“How many Wardens do you think have come from Skyhold?” Bouclier asked, her voice raised high through the sun and wind. “Surana invited my brothers from Orlais to gather at the Vigil, do you think they answered?”

“I sure hope not!” Hawke stated rudely. “I’m sick of Orlesians- no offense!”

“ _Ugh_ , why do I bother talking to you so much?”

“Because I’m the only one who hits things half as hard as you do?” Hawke asked with a brilliant smile.

“ _HAWKE!”_ he also said it loud enough that Oghren’s head seemed to come away from his shoulders and spin straight around at them.

“But you hit _twice_ as hard, sir!” Hawke’s flattery never _ever_ got him anywhere good, but it made Oghren turn back around with a huff and snap his reigns, the dwarf bouncing roughly atop his running horse. “…as Guerrin.”

“ _Hey!_ ” Connor’d heard that!

“You are going to end up in the stocks!” Genevieve warned him, and on they rode.

The road they followed curved inland as soon as they were away from the city. The cobbles faded to dust as they passed the tenth mile away from Amaranthine and passed their first marker pointing the way to Vigil’s Keep, but the gravel was fine and even as they rode. They were hedged in on either side by greenery, rolling fields of young vegetables and barley waving them on in the sweet wind.

The slowest they rode was when something glittered across the next hill, the terrain becoming more rugged as fields melted slowly into pastures dotted with white sheep and goats. The glitter became a small company of men, about six in all, wearing Amaranthine’s bear proudly on their breastplates and the colours of the Arling on their shoulders and backs. Nathaniel grunted sharply to them and the Wardens folded into a single-file line, trotting lightly by and offering salutes that were returned by the marching patrol. The fact that neither company stopped for the other smacked of either mutual respect or a little bit of rivalry, and Connor wasn’t sure which until he found himself riding next to Oghren and their pace picked back up to a high canter.

“Silver Order.” The Constable grunted to him. “Civilian militia who patrol the Arling! Surana controls the Wardens as Commander of the Grey, and the Silver Order as Arl of Amaranthine. It’s the best way to keep the Wardens neutral if Denerim ever decides to shit itself and start a war.”

“I don’t think King Alistair would let that happen,” Connor replied, wrinkling his nose. It was true he didn’t know his royal cousin personally, but he knew how Ferelden felt about him. He was a former Grey Warden, someone who carried the taint but no longer the obligation, he wouldn’t waste people’s lives for something stupid. “At least I hope not.”

Oghren laughed something crude into the wind and they carried on. Connor’s only attempt to strike up a conversation with Nathaniel got him a one-word answer and not even a flash of eye-contact, meaning the only thing to do was immediately back off and go back to where Oghren was riding. Nathaniel was not a _chatty_ person most of the time, but he wasn’t unfriendly. Maybe he was worried about seeing his sister again, or-

Or someone else. Someone who had not gone to Orlais with them all those months ago. Someone Nathaniel had tried very hard to stay near only to be told no and sent west by Commander Surana instead. Howe had done his duty and now he was on his way home as was probably his right. Connor stayed away from him.

“My wife’s a proper woman!” Oghren began boasting some time later, probably Connor’s fault for asking what the Constable thought of Vigil’s Keep. It was a roundabout answer but very like the senior warden. “Never trims the fat or stops the ale! Feeds the whole damn Keep and always with an eye on the nugglets. Strong, healthy things those two! All Oghren and just enough Fels’ to make a man proud! That woman’s thicker than cream and sweeter too between those heavy thighs I can’t wait to put my-”

“Maker’s _Breath!_ ” Connor swore, giving his horse a quick tug back on the reins and falling well out of ear-shot of the rest of Oghren’s declaration.

The terrain rose, climbing towards the west as the road wound over larger hills and wove between farms and homesteads. Amaranthine’s trees were in full bloom, the sky a piercing blue as it stretched over the rising arms of worn down mountains. The road forked in places to distinguish the parts of the Arling, but they stayed true along their path until finally, with the sun taunting them from just past midday, they arrived.

Connor had been there for the arrival at Skyhold. He’d been inspired and in awe of the keep hidden in the Frostback mountains when it appeared through the winter sunlight. But Skyhold had been empty, quiet, crumbling. Its bones had been strong but the flesh withered until the Inquisition breathed new life into it. Connor’s arrival at the Vigil was very different for that reason alone.

Thrust up the back of the keep was a tall mountain, not high enough for snow, but it looked like the Keep and her towers had been pulled from the living stone behind it. The high tower in the far ground pierced down into a heavy body of black stone, and from there came down waves of rooftops, battlements, chimneys and flags.

Banners of Grey Warden blue and Amaranthine gold fluttered in the summer wind, clinging to the walls like vines, flying from the tops of towers. Even this far away came the distant echo of metal work and voices, the gates in her formidable walls propped open in the daylight as light traffic of wagons and travellers filtered through her doors. There were soldiers and townsfolk, men and women in silver armour like they’d seen on the road, training in squadrons along the road. Wagons and horses and hawkers and criers, there were vegetable stands with the season’s early fruits lining the road approaching the keep.

“Surana’s pennant ain’t flying over the keep,” Oghren pointed out in a loud, unimpressed voice. “He ain’t home!”

“Welcome to Vigil’s Keep, Captain!” Hawke laughed behind him, their horses having slowed to a stop with the keep so tantalizingly close. Connor’s horse had pulled up close to Nathaniel’s, and the Senior Warden had a quiet, reserved look on his long face. He was dirty and unshaven after the weeks of hard travel, and there was a solemnity as he gazed down at the last stretch of road before he would be where he belonged again. It surprised Connor a little bit when the Hunter finally chose to speak again, and when he did it was to the mage.

His voice was rough and tired, but satisfied.

“Welcome home, Guerrin.”

Connor hadn’t known a heart could hold this much happiness.


	2. Vigil's Keep

Connor was overwhelmed by the Vigil.

He’d thought the Keep seemed active and busy from the _outside,_ but once they were through the gates the number of people and amount of noise easily doubled.

It wasn’t a frantic or frightening riot of sound, but there was… well, _everything_ happening. The first experience through the gates was a bustling market that put the activity of Val Royeaux to shame. No fragile flowers or gold-gilded books here: livestock, vegetables, firewood, coal, iron ore, copper ingots, vats of lard, barrels of cider, lengths of rope, weaves of cotton and wool, glass pieces, metal wire, wagon wheels, carriage axles, swords and belts and shields and bucklers. There were merchants of all threads hawking loudly around the gate, doing good and active business with each other.

The crowd parted for Grey Wardens with respect but not reverence. They silenced nothing, no staring or awed looks, just people who were quick to get out of the way of silverite griffons. Many of them smiled, a child waved, a few even gave a fast look up to the head of the company only to have their smiles fall in disappointment. The horses walked but they were tired anyways, and Connor didn’t know if he could physically handle anything above a slow walk himself.

They passed through a second set of gates through a towering granite wall, and the noise finally eased off. Here they came into a large courtyard of packed earth, the Keep’s towers looming overhead, with a large smithy belching black smoke from its chimney and a wide wooden stage currently hosting a crowd of armoured soldiers who were cheering on an event in the middle. They dismounted when an armoured woman in Grey Warden colours came and spoke to Oghren, and Connor gave Issan a firm pat down her long neck and removed her bridle before letting the reins be taken away.

Oghren was staring off to their far left, away from the fight and ignoring the sweeping steps leading into the keep proper, and he waved them off dismissively.

“You lot go ahead, I got business to- _OII!”_ He suddenly roared and Connor jumped back. Hawke laughed at him, Connor didn’t care. “ _PUT! YER! BROTHER! **DOWN!** ”_

There was a rough clatter and tumble from a set of barrels, and then a stampede of small feet. Connor had never seen a dwarven child before, but one came sprinting through the sunlight with scabbed knees, dirty hands, and wild red hair that bounced in frizzy curls. She was a short grinning shot of energy that came screaming towards Oghren and launched herself at the Grey Warden, who immediately caught her with a quick swing, laughing full and heavy.

“ _Aaaah! My girl!_ ” Oghren bellowed, nose-to-nose with the child and holding her feet off the ground, giving her a shake and bracing her small body against his without crushing her to him- he was still in his armour. “You pickin’ fights?”

“I am!”

“You _winnin’_ fights?”

“I _am!_ ”

“That’s my _steel-blooded_ hell-raiser!” Oghren cheered, setting the girl down and then barking over her head, “ _BOY!_ ”

“Dad!” Oghren beckoned a second, smaller child to him. The boy didn’t run and sail through the air like his sister had, but Oghren handled him almost as roughly. As soon as the child was within reach Oghren grabbed and grappled with him until the child was slung under his arm like a sack of potatoes, and the Warden gave the child a rough shake as he laughed and started walking.

“Where’s yer mother!?” He shouted, and that was the last clear thing Connor heard as Oghren showed absolutely no more interest in the company. His daughter ran circles around him and the dwarf simply strode off, his boy kicking and struggling uselessly to get free.

Connor felt Hawke nudge him with an elbow and saw the other Warden grinning when he looked. With a nod and a crooked grin Hawke turned him around to two black-haired boys hiding behind a large crate. They were watching Nathaniel closely where the Lieutenant was marching resolutely towards the keep, and then one of them pulled out a _bow?_

There was a rag tied around the head of the shaft the boy nocked, drew in the cramped space, and shot on a shallow angle. It bit the ground a few feet to Nathaniel’s right and gave the Warden enough of a pause for the second boy to charge out from behind the crate in a dead sprint.

Whatever Connor expected Nathaniel to do, getting tackled by a ten-year-old and taking a knee with a loud cry was not it. This was a man who bucked darkspawn off his firing arm and whose whole focus when fighting in formation was to prevent them from being flanked in the middle of a cold desert night. But he took the running tackle and he fell to one knee, and when the boy grabbed the hand the Warden lifted to pull him off, Nathaniel let the child shove his arm down. The boy hooked his arms around Nathaniel’s neck, surely not strong enough to choke him through the high collar of his blue tunic, and then tangled his knobby knees around the man’s torso- again, not something that would work because of his armour.

Connor found himself struggling not to smile at the display. The boy pulled and Nathaniel flopped onto his back- careful enough to catch _himself_ on one arm so he didn’t crush the child wrestling him into the dirt. The boy didn’t notice the courtesy at all, because he was flat on his own back and shouting back at his friend behind the crate, the Warden groaning in frustration and anger appropriate to this great upset in power.

“ _I GOT HIM!”_ The boy shouted, “ _I TOLD YOU! I KNEW I COULD! THAT’S THREE BITS YOU OWE ME, KIERAN!”_

Connor looked back at the other boy and saw him take a jump from the top of the crate and grab the overhang of the small shed at the edge of the smithy. He was wearing a purple jerkin and the colour alone was enough to make Connor focus a bit more on him. He had a silverite pendant swinging against his chest and good leather shoes that caught the grain of the shed wall and let him kick and hoist himself up with his bare arms. His clothes were fine where the child under Nathaniel was wearing decent but plain cotton and wool.

Nobleman’s son. With a bow. And an apple?

“He- _Hey!_ ” The boy on the ground suddenly shouted, releasing Nathaniel and scrambling out from under the Warden. “Hey that’s mine!”

“Oh no!” Nathaniel shouted, one hand snatching the boy’s ankle and dragging him back before he could escape. The Grey Warden pushed himself to his feet and hoisted the boy along with him, lifting his arm until the child was fully suspended in the air with dirt rubbed over his belly where his shirt had ridden up. “Is that how you greet your uncle, Thomas?”

“Hi, uncle,” Thomas, the dangling boy said in a reserved voice. “He took my apple!”

“You left it with me!” The noble boy on the roof said, taking a bite out of the green skin. He made a sour face at once and tried to lick his way through it.

“ _You don’t even like apples!”_ Thomas yelled, and either Nathaniel’s arm was growing tired or maybe the boy’s face was going a bit too red, because he gave the boy a swing and grabbed him by one elbow. It was rough but it worked and the boy hardly noticed the man-handling as he was set back on his feet. “ _Kieran c’mon!_ ”

“Catch me then, if you’re done wrestling my father’s Wardens.” Connor’s thoughts hit a wall with that.

“What did he-?” He babbled softly, watching the boy in the fine clothes sink his teeth into the apple again and quickly stand up on the roof. Thomas tried to run after him but Nathaniel still had a hand on him.

“Where’s your sister?” The Warden asked quickly.

“I dunno, I saw her running with Sorran earlier.”

“Sorran’s with her father and brother, they just left.”

“Maybe she’s with mum? Have you seen mum yet?”

“You saw me ride into the keep, boy.” And then in what was probably the most affectionate display Connor had ever seen Nathaniel give someone, he grabbed the boy in the ribs and then raked his fingers over his hair roughly. “Eating right, are you? No gnats in your hair?”

“ _No, uncle!”_

“Good.” And then with a more affectionate rub down the boy’s head, Nathaniel waved a hand after the other boy on the shed. “Go get your apple back, and then tell your mother I’m here.”

“Yes, uncle!”  But he hesitated, and flashed a brilliant grin. “I got you good, didn’t I?”

“That you did, boy. Now hurry up!” With that blessing the boy spun and took off after his friend who had a wide lead and at least one rooftop over him.

“ _Get back here with that!”_

_“Too slow! Too slow!”_

“Hawke.” Connor was still a long way behind the conversation. “That was not the Commander’s son.” The other Warden _cackled_.

“That was _absolutely_ the Commander’s son.” Andraste’s flaming sword, he had a _son?_

“You three quit gawking!” Nathaniel barked at them, and Connor finally noticed the way Genevieve had a hand over her slack-jawed mouth, staring at the Lieutenant like she hardly knew him anymore. “Can’t a man be good to his family?”

“You’ve got dirt in your hair.” Hawke quipped.

“And you’ve got half the sea in yours!”

They entered the keep with Hawke and Nathaniel egging each other, Genevieve and Connor both lagging behind taking in their brand new surroundings. The great mouth of the keep led directly to a large hall, doorways with corridors branching off between the pillars of old tree trunks that held up the cool space. A fire and several hanging iron braziers were lit and hanging for light, but the stone cooled the air after the summer sunshine outside, and their eyes only had so long to adjust before there was more conversation.

“Nathaniel Howe!” A loud, high voice cried out once they were inside. “You went to the Western Approach _without me?_ ”

“Hello, Sigrun.” Howe said gruffly, “Glad to see you’re running the show around here. Where’s the Commander?”

“Denerim, where else?” Sigrun was a dwarven woman with heavy black brands across her cheeks and forehead, three lines trailing from her nose, over her lips, and down her chin. Her black hair was threaded loosely with grey where it was wound down over each shoulder in stunted pigtails. She wore the blue tunic of a Grey Warden without any obvious signs of rank, but she spoke frankly and warmly and that was enough to keep Connor off edge. Well, off edge until she said: “He kicked a real blighter’s nest calling the Orlesian wardens to Amaranthine, and _then_ he went and made things even _worse_.”

“Great, do I even want to have this conversation while standing here?” Nathaniel asked, and the other warden shot a beaming smile and gave him a perky thumbs up.

“You bet your ass you don’t! You guys _stink_ by the way, how was the voyage?”

“Please,” Hawke grumbled, dimming down his own bright mood for emphasis. “No more salted pork. No more pickled eggs.”

“No more stale bread.” Connor added.

“No more stale bread!” Hawke echoed, finger raised and eyes wide to emphasize the point. The dwarven woman laughed at them in a kind way and then looked back at Nathaniel.

“Have you seen your family?”

“Just my nephew. I’d like to wash up before looking for them, and-” He was interrupted.

“I’ll let Delilah know you’re safe in one piece,” Sigrun gave a dutiful nod. “But you, Lieutenant, have a stack of letters probably yey-big by now in your room. I slipped ‘em under your door as they came so make sure you don’t stomp and trip on them.”

“Letters from whom?”

“From someone who gets her mail delivered via Dalish hunters.” Was the answer, and then Sigrun began to shoo him away with her hands. “Off you go, Howe! Hawke can make some introductions and Garevel already knows we have two new Wardens arriving any day now. That’s you guys, right?” Connor was finally addressed, but missed his opportunity to actually say anything. “Nate. _Go._ ”

“Alright.” The senior warden said stiffly, and then gave a brief look at the rest of them. “We’ll meet at dinner.” With a nod and brief show of his palm, Nathaniel quickly vanished through one of the doors flanking the hall and was gone.

“Warden Lieutenant Sigrun of Vigil’s Keep.” The perky dwarf suddenly announced once he was gone. “You guys just gonna stand there?”

“Warden Captain Genevieve Bouclier.” Genevieve spoke up clearly, addressing the Lieutenant with a warm smile. “Warden Commander Surana allowed me to join the company before handling the Darkspawn incursion on the storm coast.”

“And then he sent you to the Western Approach,” Sigrun filled in, and then dropped a heavy sigh. “ _Lucky…_ But y’know, I didn’t think he was serious about signing on an Orlesian. Stranger things have happened I guess.” Her words troubled the captain.

“Have many of my brothers made the journey to Vigil’s Keep?” Sigrun scoffed at the comment.

“Oh _man_ , you bet.” She said, “I don’t think the Commander was expecting them to get here before he did, but Seneschal Garevel was having a _huge_ fit when I came back from Denerim to help him out. I managed to get most of them to relocate to a place called Soldier’s Peak, about four days west of the Vigil in the mountains near Highever, but they were _not_ happy about going.”

“Let me guess,” Hawke filled in, “Teyrn Cousland isn’t exactly thrilled to have a small army of Wardens suddenly perched over his city, is he?” Sigrun clicked her tongue and gave Hawke two thumbs up with a smile. “Brilliant.”

“The Vigil’s pretty full, okay?” The dwarf defended. “But we’ll go over all that later. What about you? You got a name?” She was talking to Connor again and this time he had to answer.

“Um- Warden Ensign Connor.” He said weakly. “I, uh, I’m a mage. The Commander recruited me from Skyhold.” Sigrun squinted her eyes at him, held a short finger out and pointing at him for a moment, and then through puckered lips she whispered:

“What’s your family name?” Connor felt a lump form in his throat and tried to speak around it.

“It’s- um. I’m- Guerrin. Connor Guerrin…” he gave his full name very softly. “My… father is the Arl of-”

“Of Denerim!” Sigrun squeaked, dancing in place and covering her mouth with both hands as she gasped. “By the Ancestors! No wonder the Commander’s been at court so long! Didn’t you know your family’s been tearing up the Bannorn looking for you?” Connor’s gut clenched.

“The- I did… I mean… I heard about it before-”

“The Approach? _You lucky sod_.”

“The Storm Coast, actually.” Connor croaked. “I… I went with the Wardens instead.” Sigrun made a fist and knocked the air in front of her with it.

“ _Good!_ That’s what I wanna hear from the new blood!” She cheered, and then swung her hand to beckon them all closer. “Alright, enough chin-wagging. You three look beat and Garevel’s off doing Seneschal stuff. You guy’s’ll meet him tonight, sound good? Lemme show you the important stuff and Garevel can do the grand tour when he has time.”

Sigrun led them out the same door Nathaniel had taken and then up an immediate flight of stairs. They wound through the Keep until they reached a tall balcony with a row of doors on one side and a view down into what Sigrun and Hawke identified as the Warden Mess hall.

“Actually it’s everybody’s,” Sigrun amended. “But when we started out here after the Blight the Vigil was a pretty quiet, empty place. The name stuck.”

“Nathaniel.” Hawke said, pointing at one of the doors as they passed, “Empty. Sigrun. Warden Hestel who you’ll meet at some point. Oghren. And this one’s _mine_ meaning this is where I leave you.” Hawke gave a two-finger salute and then reached down the unlaced collar of his tunic, fishing out a chain Connor had seen now and then while travelling with him for the last few months. Looped onto the chain was a key and Hawke removed the whole thing over his head, inserting the key with a twist and letting himself in. “Take it away, Sigrun.”

“Will do. Take a bath!”

Sigrun explained that there were twenty Grey Wardens at the Vigil not including the Commander himself and the Orlesian visitors. There were seven rooms in this hallway but only four of them were occupied and one was reserved- the empty door between Nathaniel’s and Sigrun’s. Another seven were across the mess hall, and the others were on the floor below them and down a corridor to keep away from the immediate noise of the hall.

Grey Wardens did not sleep in barracks. Maybe they did in other places since Bouclier seemed surprised by the accommodations, but at Vigil’s Keep every Warden had schedule and a room of their own.

“Two weeks on duty, two off.” Sigrun explained as she took a large loop of keys off her belt, jangling them with a delighted grin. “Sometimes things get complicated and you end up being away for longer than you wanted to, or you even get a mission that means being gone for months and months like you guys just were. Don’t worry, mage, it’ll probably be patrols until you get used to things. From one end of the Arling to the other- the walking is good for your digestion!”

She unlocked the door to the room next to Hawke’s and then removed the key, telling them that the Seneschal kept the only other copy so they shouldn’t _lose_ theirs. She unlocked the next one too and took that key off as well, handing it to Genevieve.

“Servants go in when you’re away more than a month just to make sure nothing creepy’s growing in there or spider webs taking over.” She explained, and Connor was handed his key. It was long and made of bronze, the Amaranthine Bear forming the handle’s end. “Basic door etiquette is simple: if the door is open then you can go right in. If it’s closed, you have to knock. If it’s locked, then that person has either left the Vigil or doesn’t want to deal with people and you should just leave them alone. Do not, I repeat, _do not_ open a door without permission. You will regret it. I still regret it. I have _nightmares_.”

“About what?” Connor stupidly asked. Sigrun made her eyes very wide and put on a spooky voice.

“ _Things_.” She hushed, and then started laughing at her own joke.

Baths were a level below them and near the kitchen, they had to draw their own water but it would be hot. Chamber-pots were dealt with by the servants, or by nice wardens who wanted the servants to like them and so emptied the waste themselves. The Keep’s bell would ring at the start of every meal in the hall, but there was always _something_ available if you went to the kitchen and the servants _liked_ you.

Connor had not had his own room since he was a child at Redcliffe. He didn’t say this as Sigrun gave her goodbye and told them they could do whatever they liked with themselves until the dinner bell in a few hours. Genevieve vanished into her room with a smile and Connor…

This was _his room_. It was- he wanted to say it was small, but it didn’t feel small. It felt right. To his immediate right was an empty bookshelf, dust collecting on the planks of wood. There was an old chair that didn’t look like it could take much weight, probably for reading. The bed was stripped but had a mattress he pressed his hands on and felt straw and something soft but firm inside. Ferelden was a cold place and in the great chest at the foot of the bed he found several thick quilts. Sigrun had mentioned that the Seneschal was busy so the servants probably hadn’t had time to make the bed. Or he could just sleep on quilts in the summer heat- Maker knew he’d slept on worse things since leaving Skyhold. Since leaving the Circle even.

Opposite the bed was a writing desk. There were no utensils and the ink-pot was dry, but it was still a desk and he moved the chair over to it, satisfied that the seat groaned but didn’t break. There was a wardrobe in the corner with nothing in it, a standing closet with, of course, nothing, and a dusty mirror hanging on the wall that he refused to look through. Finally, there was a door with windows in it opposite the one he’d entered from.

 A balcony? These rooms must have once been for visitors, there was no way to justify soldiers having balconies attached to their rooms. It was a small bit of old rampart sectioned in the middle with a long trough of dead plants. There was a door identical to his along the wall and on the other side of the trough, which probably led back into Hawke’s room. Genevieve’s room also had a balcony, separated from his by a low wall of masonry, and the last of the seven doors in the row also connected to her space.  

Connor was too overwhelmed to say much as things proceeded to happen around him. A servant came to the door with his and Genevieve’s saddlebags. Connor quickly took his and offered a gentle thanks for the trouble. What clothes he had were filthy and the next servant who came to the door he asked about it. About what to do. At Skyhold he had done his own laundry or surrendered his shirts to a communal pot where they may or may not ever return. The servant clicked her tongue and said she would bring a laundry basket and take his dirty things away in the meantime, and then proceeded to make his bed while he stood uselessly by. She filled the lamps with oil and changed the old wicks with fresh ones, then bid him good evening.

He unpacked his few possessions. Aside from dirty laundry he had a much-abused medic’s kit: mortar, pestle, steel plate, tweezers, needles, cat-gut threads. A half-empty bottle of Deathroot extract, dried out to the point of being useless embrium petals, and what remained of his spindleweed roots after the salt of the waking sea ate through it. Several empty glass bottles followed, most of them dirty, then his depleted rations and nearly empty water skins. A wooden comb and what remained of his soap, his dagger and, um, that was about it.

His ring. He had his magi ring- a bloodstone signet that was warm around his finger and had survived more than either of his staves had until this point. And the pendant he’d been given after waking up from the joining: a silver amulet with a swirling bead of black blood…

All of Connor’s possessions together, not counting the saddlebag itself, filled half of one drawer in the closet. He’d owned even less as an Apprentice in Kinloch Hold and as an assistant at Skyhold, but somehow here it felt more… potent.

“What’s with that sad, lost look you’ve got there?” Hawke’s voice from the door surprised him and Connor realized he’d left it wide open: a signal that anyone could walk in. Hawke was leaning on the door-frame with a towel around his shoulders, a fresh white tunic on over clean britches and soft shoes. His hair was still wet.

“Just… a bit overwhelmed, I think.”

“Go take a hot bath, you’ll feel better.”

“The rest of my clothes have either sand or saltwater in them.” Connor explained. “I’ll wait for dinner, bathe, and then just go to sleep.”

“You do know I’ve been living here for almost four years now, right?”

“Uh, I guess you have?” Connor didn’t know what that had to do with things.

“So you could always try saying, _‘Hawke, may I please borrow a shirt?_ ’” For some reason, that comment nettled him.

“Why do I always want to be rude to you?” Connor asked, criticising himself and trying to figure out what about Hawke’s smile made him want to do something mean in retaliation.

“Because I’m adorable. Go on, ask.”

“Hawke, may I please borrow a shirt?”

“Nah, not today.”

“ _Ass._ ”

Connor whiled away the time until dinner wandering the Keep. He found a library with a modest collection of different books, he found the kitchen which was surprisingly quiet considering it was the heart of the keep. On one of the higher levels he saw a set of double-doors far more grand and decorated than the others and rightly assumed that they led to the Warden Commander’s study and apartments.

He also found the Seneschal’s office by accident. The man looked up immediately when Connor made the mistake of stopping in front of the open door- apparently open doors was the policy for the entire keep. Seneschal Garevel was a mature man with tight curly blond hair and a narrow face, cleanly shaven. He had a sword and shield of Amaranthine on the wall behind his desk and wore a fine tunic of woven leather.

The Seneschal immediately confirmed who Connor was, _what_ Connor was, and why he was still unwashed and apparently wandering the Keep like a lost soul.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your work, Seneschal, I’m fine to wait like this.”

“Nonsense! The Vigil knows how to treat her Grey Wardens.” Garevel had Connor following him through the Keep seconds later.

“You couldn’t possibly have known when we’d arrive.”

“No, but the Arl made it very clear how many new Wardens and roughly when they would arrive, so of course we made the necessary preparations. And, just between you and I, we’ll be making a lot more of them soon thanks to the hornet’s nest his lordship kicked this time.” That was now the second time someone had mentioned Surana getting himself into political trouble.

“Um… I may regret this,” Connor murmured hopelessly. “But, what exactly has the Commander done?”

“You don’t know?” Oh he did, Connor was just asking to be difficult. _Of course he didn’t know._ “Here’s a question for your question then. Do you know how many mages there are in the Ferelden Grey Wardens?”

“Uh…” Commander Surana, obviously. He knew the Commander’s personal company had been after him to recruit a new mage for some time and Connor filled that slot, but-

“Two.” Garevel told him. “You and the Arl. That’s it. Do you know how many mages are in the Silver Order?”

“Significantly _more?_ ” Connor asked cautiously.

“You’re a quick study, I like that. Yes. _Many more.”_ Garevel reached the door he was looking for and took Connor down a thin, narrow servant’s passage way. “And they didn’t come to Vigil’s Keep asking to join the Order, they wanted in with the Grey Wardens. Now yes, your family name complicates matters, but it doesn’t really effect relations between the Silver Order and the Grey Wardens nearly as much as you being a _mage_ does. They would care just as much about you being a miller’s son as they do your noble father, that’s irrelevant: what matters if they’ve been fighting for years to receive what you earned in _weeks._ ”

“The Joining?”

“I haven’t a clue what the Arl’s plan is, but personally I’ve got my fingers crossed hoping he sweeps half the Order up into the Grey Wardens when he gets back from Denerim. It might irritate Highever a bit more what with the excitement at Soldier’s Peak, but most of us at the Vigil would be glad to have as many Fereldan Wardens as there are Orlesian. Here we go, I knew we had them somewhere.”

Garevel had entered a small room filled with boxes and folds of leather and paper and animal skins. He took down two flat boxes and opened the top of one to double-check its contents. With a length of chalk he quickly scratched Connor’s name on top and then something else on the bottom one, handing the box to him. Before they returned to the main part of the keep Garevel also found him a set of towels.

“The Keep is well stocked?” He commented lamely.

“Take those with you and get yourself cleaned up before the dinner bell. They should fit just fine- you’re a mage, aren’t you?” Garevel smiled like that was a joke. “If there are any problems I’ll have them sent to Wade with proper measurements taken this time. Now, I need to go find Mistress Felsi. I know where she is, I just have to convince her to finish dinner service before… Oh blast it. It’s not worth my sanity.”

Garevel seemed like a nice, if overworked, sort of person. Connor checked the box’s contents before drawing his bath and was floored by the sight of quilted blue and silverite resting in a nest of discarded wool batting. It wasn’t a full set of armour, just the tunic and two sets of underclothes- the black shirt and britches the other Wardens wore. Connor had suffered in a fur-lined leather robe through the Western Approach, it was far too warm for the summer months and needed desperate help before it fell apart from past abuses, but this.

This was _incredible_.

He bathed and dressed himself in clean clothes. He took his first meal at Vigil’s Keep sitting between Genevieve and Sigrun as the hall filled with chatter. Without a staff and not wearing the woven blue tunic it was hard to know Connor was a mage if anyone thought to wonder at all.

Sigrun was a bubbly and excited woman. She wanted to know all about the Western Approach, what they’d seen, how many darkspawn they’d killed, if the dragon that had eaten Connor’s staff had also given him the wicked scars across his eyes- her words, not his.

“Erm- no…” He felt himself sink into his shell when she brought it up, cautiously touching the skin next to one of his eyes. It hardly felt different, but scars were scars and it was his own fault he had them. “These are from the Storm Coast.”

“Man I am _so jealous!_ Why am _I_ always the one who gets sent to Denerim? I’m a former Legionnaire! I gotta get myself killed sooner or later!”

“That’s probably _why_ you get sent to Denerim so much.” Hawke told her dryly from his dinner of heaped potatoes and mashed peas with gravy. Connor’s appetite had grown out of control after his Joining- he finally understood the sheer volume of food Hawke and the other Wardens could put away in a sitting. “Someone’s bound to put a knife in you at some point. _Nobles_.”

“ _Nobles!”_ Sigrun sneered back in good humour. “Hey Guerrin, hey, _hey!”_

“-yes?” He gulped around a bigger bite than he _should_ have taken from the roasted chicken on his plate. Neither Oghren nor Nathaniel had appeared for the meal, but they were senior wardens with families, they’d be alright.

“You’re a mage, right?” There was a mad little glint in her eyes when she asked that. Connor swallowed thickly and nodded. “Can you set this on _fire_?”

This was a piece of paper. It didn’t look all that special, just a strip of torn yellow parchment.

“…why?” He asked.

“Can you? _Can you?_ ”

“ _She does this to the Commander too._ ” Hawke _whispered_ at full volume.

“And he does it! C’mon, Guerrin, do some magic!” Connor wanted to shush her after what Garevel had told him, but instead he just stammered and forgot how to speak.

“He’s tired, Lieutenant.” Genevieve swept in to his rescue. “Perhaps tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow would be better,” Connor croaked. It scared him when Sigrun lit up at the suggestion.

“Tomorrow you can spar someone!” She gasped, star-struck. “With _magic!_ ”

“Please stop saying that so loudly.” Connor pleaded.

“I’ll make the arrangements tonight!” She carried on, deaf to him. “I can think of three- no, _four_ mages who’d totally be down for a fight with the new Warden.” _Andraste’s flaming sword was she trying to **kill** him?_

 _“_ Sigrun please-”

“I’m gonna go start!” And then she was up. And then she was gone. And Connor was going to die tomorrow in a four-on-one fight against several slighted battlemages. He stared forlornly after the place where she’d vanished and then, ready to be sick with the nervous cold creeping through his skin, looked at the others.

“I’m sure it will be fine.” Genevieve told him kindly.

“They’re gonna eat you _alive_.” Hawke told him not kindly.

Connor picked up the gravy boat sitting not far from his plate and emptied far too much of it over the rest of his meal. He then grabbed another piece of warm bread from the basket between them and started sopping up the thick, smoky juices.

“Then I’ll die with a full stomach.”

The rest of the evening went nicely.


	3. Do No Harm But Take No Shit

The problem with having two factions call the same fortress home was in the boundaries. Vigil’s Keep was rife with them and seemed to have two of everything.

There were ‘Warden’ tables in the mess hall and ‘Silver’ latrines in the courtyard. The Wardens had rooms and the Order had barracks, most of the Wardens who had families also had space for them at the Vigil while the majority of the families the Silver Order supported lived in Amaranthine or on homesteads across the Arling. The boundaries seemed to have been on the periphery of the Keep for some time, but everyone Connor spoke to made it clear that the tension between Surana’s less-than-twenty Grey Wardens and his hundred-man-strong militia had only begun to chafe with the arrival of the Orlesians.

 Connor could sympathize with that. This was Ferelden, Orlesians were rarely well-received _anywhere._ Many of the militia members had also aspired to _be_ Grey Wardens and for reasons unknown to Connor had either been denied or delayed by Surana. This meant that the weeks where the Grey Wardens’ modest numbers had suddenly swollen to nearly four times normal had been… harrowing.

Connor didn’t know if anyone had realized that Genevieve, one of those same Orlesians, had been given a permanent room at the Vigil. The only thing he could focus on was the sense of immediate doom on his first proper morning in the fortress. The nug was out of the sack: Connor was not just a brand new Warden, he was a brand new Warden _Mage_.

The Circle had generally ignored its newly-arrived apprentices. Redcliffe had been overrun with rebel mages coming and going with the wind. Skyhold had been too busy plugging holes in the sky to care.

The mages of the Silver Order cared. They cared, and they gaped, and at least one was so incensed by the news that he slammed his hands on the table the mages shared in the mess hall and stormed out. Connor wanted to curl up under his chair and _die_.

“Good luck with your match today!” Seneschal Garevel meant well by the words when he collected Connor after breakfast. He had proper time for him today. “Sigrun has the whole keep talking about it, should be exciting and good for moral!” Connor had no idea how this would be good for _anything._

He had ice-cold sweat trickling down his neck as Garevel tried to talk to him about important things. They settled his back-pay for the last six months: apparently he’d been entitled to a modest stipend as a recruit and a more comfortable one after his Joining, and then there was a few additional coppers a day for being sent so far in service of the Vigil. If he’d had a family the extra money would have helped them cope with his absence, Connor wasn’t sure why he got the bonus as well since it seemed someone like Oghren or Nathaniel would find it more beneficial, but kept his mouth shut. Garevel then walked Connor through his immediate responsibilities: he had none.

“Um…”

“Arl Surana may have work specific to a mage for you to do, but as a courtesy to him his laboratory remains locked when he is away from the Vigil.” Of course Commander Surana would have a magical laboratory. That was just something every mage had to have, apparently. “He’s sent no specific instructions for things he needs you to focus on, so I would just assume your time is your own while here at the keep.”

“So I just… sit on my hands for two weeks until I go on patrol?” That didn’t sound right.

“You’re a young man with his own horse and six month’s pay in your hand. I’m sure you can keep yourself busy without disgracing your office.” Garevel’s wink did _not_ help matters.

“Am I allowed to leave the Vigil?” He asked.

“You must inform my office of where you’re going and when you’ll be back for your own protection. I’d recommend taking a companion along for safety’s sake, but this _is_ Amaranthine and you _are_ a Grey Warden. The Pilgim’s Path should be quite safe.”

Connor’s last question was how he would go about getting a new staff. Garevel welcomed him to one of the Silver Order’s spares but Connor was too wary of trodden toes for that. The Vigil’s market and countryside would probably have raw materials and Connor had the money to commission one from the Arling’s artificers: apparently Commander Surana had kept the Vigil’s doors open to tranquil mages fleeing the dissolution of the circles. They were located in Amaranthine city and had formed a guild of formari to ply their trade under the Grey Warden’s supervision until the College and the Chantry sorted themselves out. He could also try to save money by simply going to Amaranthine and see if they just _had_ any staves available, or he could take the sure bet and ride four days south to Denerim.

“Most of those are out of the question before this afternoon, of course.” Connor left Garevel’s office feeling no better than he’d gone in.

“You could borrow one of Surana’s spares. I’m sure he has a couple up in his rooms.” Absolutely _not_. Why had he even bothered talking to Hawke?

“Do you need one that badly?” Genevieve asked, ignoring Hawke’s horrible suggestion. “You seemed capable without one on the road to Val Royeaux.”

“I had four Grey Wardens between me and anything we met on the road.” Connor explained, sitting on the Vigil’s front steps with his face in his hands, the summer sun rising steadily closer to the noon mark. “If any of them fight like the Commander does then I’ll need a staff or they’ll just club me to death.”

“That’d be pretty funny.” Hawke taunted. Connor gave him a black look and then went back to staring at his still-sandy boots. Genevieve drew her hand back and landed a solid jab on Hawke’s arm for him.

“Ow…”

“Keep it up and you and I will be in the ring after the mages.” She scolded, her dark hair twisted into little fingers of sandy brown that caught the sun and made the ends seem brighter than they should have been. “I’m sure the crowd would have your back for it too.”

“Yes, and hitting me like that won’t endear you to them.” Hawke complained.

“It endears her to _me_.” Connor countered, earning a smile from one Warden and a scoff from the other.

“Shut up, I bruise easily!”

“No you don’t?” Connor had been the one to treat his every wound these last few months. Hawke bruised like a rock.

“Inside.” Hawke pleaded deceitfully. “My _feelings_.”

Genevieve said something rude in Orlesian that made Connor laugh, a good feeling. He ran his hands over the quilted arms of his blue tunic, the beads of silverite catching the light from their nests of thickly woven blue wool. The metal was woven thickly through the garment and made it heavy, but the bones would take a lot of punishment before letting Connor feel much pain from being attacked. The enchantments woven through the metal were there to help spare him from the lingering effects of magical assaults, keep his body firm and held up so he could focus on what he was doing instead of how quickly he was going to get hurt.

He actually felt like a Grey Warden with it on. He’d tried it last night and been amazed, so of course he’d worn it since getting out of bed. Connor had his gloves on and had safely looped his signet ring onto the same chain as the amulet under his shirt, his fingers playing with the cuff of his sleeve. He felt like a Warden and looked like one now, not just some dunder-headed mage who’d swallowed some blood and then been pulled along on a wild adventure.

The armour calmed his stomach. He’d survived a practice fight against Hawke months ago at Skyhold. Even if he fought just as badly today as he had then, at least he knew he wouldn’t die.

 Connor felt a tap at his shoulder and the other two straightened up curiously before he could look. Nathaniel was there behind them and in full gear, his buckles polished and belts arrayed around his armour. He looked grim and surly but Connor was used to his _‘thinking face’_ and thought little of it. He had his daggers, his longbow, and a quiver of fresh arrows hanging at his hip.

“Where in Andraste’s name are you off to?” Hawke asked.

“The Wending Wood.”

“Um. Why?”

“None of your business, why.” Nathaniel rebuked.

“Do you want us to come with you?” Connor asked in wonder. Nathaniel had given such a push to get here as fast as possible, and now-

“We just got back _yesterday!_ ” Hawke howled.

“Shut up.” Nathaniel barked, and then: “Thank you, Connor, but no. The woods are vast but the road is safe and well-travelled. Besides, you’ve got enough to worry about just getting settled in. Here, you’ll need this.”

Connor accepted the headless haft of a broomstick from Nathaniel. He was entirely too bitter to make a civil reply. Genevieve made a sincere remark about Connor’s restored ability to hit back in a fight. Hawke leaned on the wall laughing at him, and Nathaniel seemed pleased with his stone cold delivery of the joke.

“I’ll stick around until the fighting’s done.” He showed his teeth after the taunt. “I’ve got half a crown on the outcome.”

“I hate you people.” Connor whispered in a bitter voice because he was a bitter, bitter man.

It was only a matter of minutes before Warden Sigrun found them loitering on the steps and came trotting over, her heavily tattooed face beaming with delight. Her excitement faltered when she saw the plain wooden stick in Connor’s hand, but when Nathaniel dryly tossed out a comment about dragons the other Warden howled and stomped her feet in the dirt.

“You guys fought a _High Dragon_ and you didn’t bring _me!?”_

Thank the Maker the entire keep didn’t actually show up. There were not one-hundred Silver Order militiamen and exactly twenty-minus-the-Commander Grey Wardens crowded around the sparring ring, it was closer to maybe twenty men and women and elves and dwarves in silverite armour and counting Connor’s own company members there were maybe eight spectators in blue. It was still a crowd and by virtue of its size it grew as runners and servants were pulled over in curiosity to see what was happening. It was also unnerving to look up and see several children sitting on the roof of the smithy, Nathaniel’s nephew and Commander Surana’s son sharing a bag of snacks, but it still was not the _entire_ population of Vigil’s Keep.

There was no fan-fare, no introductions, no boasting, no nothing _really_. Connor was obviously a Grey Warden who didn’t want to enter the packed dirt of the ring, and his opponent was obviously a very irate human woman with ropes of thick black hair and a white scar trailing down her dark face. Her robe was almost the same style as Connor’s, which made sense since they served the same throne and lived in the same keep, but the bear of Amaranthine was far more obvious than the little silverite griffon on Connor’s belt buckle.

Her staff was also a proper sodding staff, and-

_Fire!_

The other mage snapped her staff back over her wrist, the two ends blurring with red flame as he recognized the spell _and_ its execution. A broomstick was just a broomstick and he swung it behind him, the rod catching on the hook strapped to his shoulder, and his now-empty palm swept past his face. He spread a web of reflective blue magic in front of him and reinforced it with his left hand pushing forward, chanting _“no no no no no,_ ” quickly between his teeth.

The air _ripped_ and fire blossomed over the barrier, the heat surging over his head and making his hair feel dry and hot. He rotated his right hand with a snap at the wrist, fingers dragging threads of _stop it stop stop_ until he had enough to form a white hot bolt and hurled it back across the ring. She deflected the bolt off the end of her staff, causing a loud screech of magic that interrupted her next spell and urged her to advance on him quickly. With a wide sweep of her hand several twisted tails of blue lightning crackled towards him Connor felt a flutter of confidence.

He cracked his palms together and the spell came to life in his mind, magic roaring down his arms as he blew out a shock of thick grappling violet streaks. The two spells collided and Connor’s thundered through the harmless blue, dashing the ground and striking through her leg to bring the other mage to one knee. She flung something off her staff and his hand was raised to blow her back and out of the ring. He was going to win this!

Bad light erupted under his feet. Very bad light. Very bad, _knock your feet out from under you_ bad light. Connor felt like a giant took him by the ankles and with a short and sweet shriek he was whipped back through the air until his shoulders collided full and broke through the wooden railing separating spectators from fighters. He was _definitely_ out of the ring.

“Maker! Are you alright?” Hawke asked over him, not bothering to hide his wince as Connor wheezed painfully and tried to move. His tunic had _actually_ helped him, because he felt the bruises forming but nothing wrenched out of place or broken.

“ _She hits like a genlock…”_ He croaked, groaning loudly as he picked himself up very, very slowly. But he did make it to his feet and stay there, and when he saw Nathaniel biting his bottom lip and looking around past Connor, the mage turned.

The woman he’d just lost to was knocking her gloved arm against a tall, dark-haired mage with a face half-covered by the black scuff of his beard. One of his eyes looked shaded in purple due to a star pattern tattooed down the side of his face. His staff was made of braided black metal with green crystals studded down the body, and he was all aggression as he stomped into the ring and raised his hand to point a challenge at Connor.

Maker’s _breath_ he had to do this _four times?_ By the time they reached the last one that mage would have seen more than enough to know how to hit first!

“Connor, if you can’t-” Connor walked to the ring before Nathaniel could finish trying to give him an out. It was his second damn day at the Vigil and he wasn’t going to mark it by running away and cowering in the medical tent.

“What insult is this!” Connor’s opponent shouted, jabbing his hand at him rudely. Maybe he started grandstanding as a courtesy so Connor could make sure he was definitely up for going through this again. “The Wardens finally make a choice and it’s someone who doesn’t even have his own staff!” That nettled him. He didn’t think whatever came out of the other mage’s mouth would do that, but it did. He’d started out bitter and now Connor was rather irritated too.

“Take it up with the _sodding dragon_.” He complained, because he couldn’t think of anything clever to say. “What circle is that mark from?” Why in the Maker’s name he asked that he did not know. He placed his palms together and drew his hands up, gathering his strength and trying to think clearly, flush out the anger and breathe in his own spell power…

“None! No circle ever caged me!”

“Kinloch Hold sends its regards.” Connor didn’t care, Connor shot his hands apart quickly, one glyph on each palm, and threw them as fast as he could. The other mage retaliated with a jet of radiant blue mist near his feet that Connor quickly swerved away from before it erupted in a blast of cold ice. The dirt beneath him puckered with another frigid spell but Connor threw a third mark off his left hand first.

The same glyph the first mage had used to throw Connor from the ring- a mark of repulsion, was overlaid with a paralyzing surge of light. The two marks reacted violently to one another right behind his opponent who had ignored them as over-shot and he howled in fury when the spell snatched and bound him up like a parcel. His spell frayed and fell apart, Connor’s retaliating surge of gold and white magic lacing the ground surrounding the paralyzed mage.

He probably knew what would happen as soon as he wrenched himself free, but Connor had another spell ready to fire in case it didn’t work. The mage forced his arms to rise and broke free from the spell, his heels landing on the criss-crossing lines of icy force.

Connor grabbed him through the glyph, clutched his hand tight as ice twisted up the mage’s legs, and with a torque and rip of his arm the three marks shattered and the other mage went tumbling back and out of the ring like a smoking comet of cold air. He’d  _won!_

A rough, booming laugh that sounded like Oghren rose over the startled cheer from the crowd of soldiers. Hawke blew a high whistle around his fingers and Connor thought he saw Seneschal Garevel collecting coins from someone next to him.

It occurred to him briefly that the Order might retaliate against him, but as the mage he’d just blown up got to his feet with an unsteady groan Connor’s fear went away. He gave Connor a sour look, holding his shoulder where he’d pulled it badly on the landing, but then inclined his head directly to him. Connor was too shocked to return it quickly enough, but he did- he tried! He was seen and that was what mattered.

He was one for two and that was much better than he’d expected. Pity then that the militiamen in the crowd began to stomp and clap in unison, giving a slow, steady beat that Connor found incredibly distressing.

 _“Captain! Captain! Captain!”_  Oh great. Connor had a good feeling the Silver were far more rigid about their ranks than the Grey …

The Captain was a Dalish elf with a long, narrow face. The blood-writing across his sun-bronzed skin didn’t mean anything significant to Connor except  _‘don’t make any more Circle references’._  His hair was shaved close and short, shocked between yellow and white and curled proudly at the top of his head. He wore more intricate silverite plates girding a deep green robe boned down the sleeves in the Dalish style. His staff was a twisted length of heartwood with a large white crystal fixed at the top. He wore a nasty smile, and he didn’t grandstand.

He charged with threads of yellow light trailing his staff and crackling over his gloved hands and Connor’s mind  _blanked_. He threw a lance of white lightning off his left hand, pulling his so-called staff off his back and feeling the whole thing shudder when it met a weight-bearing blow from the elf. Connor’s feet slid, his feet kicked, and he twisted around the other mage with one end of the pole swinging to hit the middle of his back.

He took the back end of the mage’s wooden staff to his gut and a burst of concussive magic threw him. He hit the ground on his shoulders and let his legs fly over his head, digging his feet into the dirt and coming up with a half-formed spell clinging to the palm of his hand.

Connor’s entire body  _trembled_  when something sharp and bitter cut through his skin. It crawled down his throat when he gasped and the reckless chatter of death and pain wailed through his mind, dispelling his thoughts and causing the perpetual fire of magic in his soul to wrack and retreat. He didn’t know the spell, he didn’t know what it was, but he felt a staff crack down hard and heavy on his shoulder and then a boot that hooked under his torso and launched him through the air.

Instead of going through the railing this time Connor tumbled under it, his body scraping over the wooden planks that circled the ring until he dropped off a step and hit the pebbled ground outside the arena itself. As soon as he was out of sight the spell threading violently through his body released.

He gasped and immediately coughed, eyes wet and trying to wash the caustic glow from them. He planted one hand on the ground and pushed himself up, arms weak, and his legs shook but held when he stumbled weakly to his feet. His body felt like one big, ugly bruise, and there was blood in his mouth from something the magic had done to him.

Entropy. Right. He  _did_  know that kind of magic. There had been an Emissary on the Approach.

Connor was not going to pretend that he felt fine. He did not feel fine, he felt like his insides were jostling for position to crawl up his throat. His heart was thundering hard in his chest, pushing his blood around like a bully and getting him to square up and gather himself.

He turned with a rough breath and swung his head under the railing, walking back for the ring. He’d been told four fights.

The spectators were cheering and laughing, some of them drifting away now but when Connor reappeared the jeering started up even louder. He rolled his head and rubbed the back of his neck, working through the pain and irritation of being flung around like a mouse by its tail.

The three silver mages were talking in the ring but stopped when they heard the noise and looked his way. He groaned inside and approached them. The Captain was leaning on his staff with a satisfied look, but when the two other mages saw Connor coming he straightened up and regarded Connor curiously.

“Yes, Warden?” He said bluntly.

“Uh-” Connor fumbled. “I was told there were four rounds.” The elf looked back at the other two briefly, then cast Connor a curious look up and down.

“You want to go again?” Was the question. “After all that?”

“Sigrun said there would be four.” He repeated. “I’m alright losing three times.”

“Surana’s new Warden should  _not_  be that complacent.” The Captain retorted sharply. “Do you even care about the colours you wear?” Connor straightened up, his bruised shoulders didn’t like it but he didn’t care.

“Of course I do.” He quipped back. “Getting back up is just as important as winning outright. It’s no fun defeating something just to black out afterwards.” Something Connor was sadly well-versed in: his first foray into the Deep Roads had not ended in a way he liked to boast about. “If I misunderstood the number of rounds then- thank you for sparring with me, Captain, and I’ll take my leave.”

“He’s just covering his ass after his boast backfired.” The human mage Connor had caught in the ice-mine suddenly piped up. “Came out with a broomstick instead of a staff trying to up-show us.”

“No!” he blurted out. “I don’t have one. This was just in case we had to melee and I think the Captain cracked it with that one hit anyways.” None of them looked like they believed him or  _cared._  “I- I don’t have any answers to the questions you’re holding on to. I just arrived here yesterday and all I have are rumours and dirty looks to go on. I just- my name is Warden Ensign Connor and I don’t know what it is everyone seems to expect from me.”

“Corporal Sephri.” The mage with dark skin and that pale scar over her cheek finally said. She didn’t sound happy, but she was civil. “You draw your glyphs the way they taught in the Circle. Which prison were you from?” Connor wouldn’t have called it a  _prison_  perhaps, but-

“Kinloch Hold.” He answered promptly. “The Ferelden Circle.”

“I was from Starkhaven.” She said, and he heard a hardness in her voice that confirmed her Marcher heritage. “But I began the war in Kirkwall. The Champion and her Grey Warden brother helped us escape when the Gallows burned.”

“I’ve traveled with Warden Hawke…”

“ _I know_.” Sephri spat, and Connor decided to tread lightly around her.

“Sergeant Geoffrey.” The bearded mage introduced himself hotly, but not before receiving a look and a nod from the mage Captain. “I got cocky, but your primal magic is sloppy and spends too much energy flying wide instead of focusing.”

Connor took a breath and reeled back the words ‘ _That’s nice now fuck you_ ’ before they could actually escape.

“Thank you.” He answered instead, and how his shoulders hurt from standing this straight. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And furthermore-” Geoffrey tried to continue, but his Captain spoke over him.

“Your form is weak.” The Dalish mage told him. “You constantly lose your footing when casting or repelling attacks. You hold your barriers top-heavy and for too long. There’s no reason, even without a proper staff, to use your hands as a launch point for your ranged spells and yet you do so frequently and ineffectively. It’s like you can’t even see spells coming unless your eyes are actually on them, meaning it’s easy to slip between your guard and throw you off your feet. In a contest of strength you react late and don’t know how to exit a grapple cleanly, and I doubt you have the mental fortitude for extended combat. The fact that Arl Surana would promote a  _shemlen_  of such obvious inexperience to the Grey Wardens is-”

Connor experienced a mental break.

“I don’t think I’m going to remember all that, Captain.” He interrupted, blundering directly through the rest of the other mage’s laundry-list of complaints. “I learn much better from experiencing things first hand, perhaps a short rematch will help you make a more succinct point?”

“Did you just interrupt me?” The elf demanded.

“I did.” He bit back. “Seems I’ve still got that silver spoon stuck in my mouth what-with all the special treatment I receive all the time. Redcliffe, Skyhold, Griffon Wing- turns out I spend a lot of time in castles.”

“I don’t like your attitude.” Corporal Sephri stepped up aggressively and Connor gave her a  _brilliant_  grin.

“Suppose I need some help adjusting to the Vigil,” he chirped. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to help me with it? I’m a quick study, Corporal, honest.”

“Two against one’ll teach you not to run your mouth.” Sergeant Geoffrey growled menacingly at him and Connor kept smiling.

“If only darkspawn took turns as easily as we mages do.” He said, merrily digging his hole because, honestly?  _Fuck_  this entire escapade.

Connor didn’t have to explain why he was a Grey Warden: he’d done the Joining, survived, and arrived in the Grey Warden base here in Ferelden. If the Silver Order were so outraged then they should take it up with the person who’d let him have the chalice, not the one who’d drunk from it, and that person was in Denerim for the foreseeable future doing political things. He was also their Arl and the Warden’s Commander, so the mages were welcome to try storming his apartments for answers.

Connor didn’t have to justify Surana’s choice in him either. He was happy to doubt and criticize  _himself_  of course, no one knew how badly Connor did things as well as Connor himself. Was his form weak? Yes his form was weak. Did his spells lack focus? Yes his spells lacked focus. Could he run a flat ten miles, sword-fight his way through a thunderstorm, and then cast nine hours of enchantments all in a single day? No, he absolutely could not, but the only person in Ferelden who possibly  _could_  was- oh, what a coincidence, the same Commander who was off in Denerim.

Connor was ready and willing to doubt  _himself_  as a Grey warden, but just accepting blind criticism from people he had never met and who’d decided to take offense at his very existence? He wasn’t going to do that, not unless they rendered him down to a bleeding, char-broiled lump of tainted humanity first.

He’d put up with too much shit on the Western Approach to deal with this sort of thing right now. For all he’d convinced himself that everyone at Skyhold had been relieved to see the back of him, Connor could not actually recall a single instance of anyone being as directly rude to him there, where he’d had nothing, than was happening here, in the place where he was a paid resident and Grey Warden.

Connor Guerrin had not stared a Darkspawn Alpha in its screaming mouth yards away from a broodmother’s lair with the entire company under attack after an emergency expedition through the deep roads just to be scoffed at  _now_  by people who didn’t think he could do his job.

“Three on one.” The Captain barked, and their group separated: three Silver mages on one side, Connor on the other. The Captain stood in the middle with his Sergeant to Connor’s left and the Corporal to the right.

From not-too far away in the thin remains of the crowd, Connor heard the following:

“Guerrin?”

“ _No._  I don’t care what you say, Sigrun: that was  _not_  a friendly chat.”

“ _Guerrin?”_

“Why are all three of them still in the ring? Hawke? Explain this to me! Lieutenant you did not say-”

“ _Connor, you answer me!”_

“ _KICK THEIR ASSES, MAGE!”_  At least the chatter got to end with Oghren.

This was going to end fast and it was going to end loud. Darkspawn on the Approach only came out to hunt at night and there were dozens of vicious, ugly, aggressive creatures wandering the sandy dunes during the blistering hot days. Connor had the endurance to fight as long as his life or those around him were in danger. He didn’t want a battle of endurance now, he wanted a fight that would either end fast with him walking back into the keep, or end even faster with his limp body being dragged off for disposal.

Three glowing staffs swung up and Connor sucked in a deep, steady breath to call up his magic. He planted his feet hard in the dirt with his knees bent, braced for when his weight swung wide and his hand threw the command for ice off his wrist. His will crystalized into sheer slabs of serrated ice that grew from his feet and formed half a ring in front of him, the cold barrier catching several successive bolts from the mages attacking him. It would not hold.

His mind formed a ring of control that set itself over the ground, unseen but obvious to the rest of his senses as it eclipsed the field and his thumb snapped the rod in his hand around three of his fingers in a fast rotation. The channels from his heart, to shoulder, to elbow, to wrist, to fingers were clear and open, mana singing through his skin and weaving thick and brilliant along the pole, quickly heating and marking it with lines of char as the untreated wood passively crumbled.

The ice exploded back with tongues of red fire licking the air, and Connor shot his hand forward and let the cinders and chunks of the stick fall where they may. The magic rumbled and ignited the circle, a vortex of cold wind opening up over their heads before arms of wicked violet light struck down and blasted the sand and dirt. Sergeant Geoffrey’s staff fell with a scream when the black iron called a bolt of lightning right down from Connor’s spell into his arm, causing the mage to stumble to his knees with blood spitting down from under his armour. He retreated out of the circle with his wound.

Sephri had seen his lightning before and didn’t fear it, two bolts blasting the ground in front of her as Connor reacted to the unfamiliar marks flying off her staff. He picked up his feet and ran hard to where Sergeant Geoffrey had abandoned his staff, kicking himself into a forward roll when he felt the magic ripping through the ground behind him and tried to escape the knife-like branches of enchanted bramble the mage captain sent after him.

Fire roared across his path from Sephri and Connor drew a straight sharp work-knife from his belt. It wasn’t long enough for most fights but it was steel and strong and took the burn of his magic far better than the broomstick, cutting the air and making room for the prismatic body of a barrier Connor rolled through the fire so he could leap through the least of the flames.

He hit the ground, rolled forward, and came up with Geoffrey’s black iron and serpentstone staff in time to block one of the Captain’s staff bolts and take another one from Sephri to his shoulder with a hiss. He pushed through to his feet and fed the staff’s own power into the barrier he threw around himself properly this time. It watered the Dalish mage’s fire down to something uncomfortably hot and gave Connor the time and cover to scratch something to the base of the black iron and sling it off the base under the lip of Sephri’s own barrier. Her shield hovered too high off the ground and with a startled shriek the spell unravelled completely, mana pouring through her skin like smoke in a net, her eyes watering and lungs choked as her magic hissed and squeezed out of her in response to the neutralizing glyph crackling at her feet.

He went blind but for that glyph a second later, following his own spell with his mind and hurling a bolt of pure force to knock and battle the other mage out of the ring. When something sinister and violent rose up against his senses Connor swung wide and planted the end of his staff into the ground: forcing several twisted arms of lightning from the serpentstones studded down the weapon’s body. Two of them lanced the captain and the last one in darkness hit Sephri’s back as she fled.

The screaming swallowed him again, that festering, wild chatter that scratched through his mind and cut his skin like thorns, ripping and pulling and bleeding against him. He was blind from one spell and staggered from the other, a white point flashing against the darkness, crackling with the power to send him flying again.

_No._

The taint was roaring in his blood and Connor held the staff straight, one hand near the head and the other far enough down, planting it on the ground so when that orb struck he felt the weapon shudder but resist. He grappled with the magic wringing its way through his body, heart thundering with indignation as his mind railed and focused.

A smarting blow landed over his shoulder- the back-end of the Captain’s staff. He couldn’t melee  _blind_  but the indignity of it made his blood burn. He could hear and he could sense the staff and when he lashed out at air he followed through with a second, a third, pivoting around the white head and riding the high energy of pulsing through his limbs.

He took a blow to the gut and retaliated with a thick cord of fire from his own mouth- not his hands! See! The fire was clear to him and when it struck a form that flinched back he followed with an uppercut from the staff, a satisfying smack answering him before the two staves locked in a grapple.

_NO._

The taint and Connor’s magic burned through the spell holding him hostage. His vision opened up with the Captain’s gaunt and bloody face growling at him from the other side of the lock. Their staves were perpendicular and spitting sparks from opposite ends, exhausted mana hanging thick in the air as they pushed hard against each other looking for an opening.

Connor made one.

“I’m a  _Warden.”_  He dropped his staff and slammed his forehead into the Captain’s nose when the elf stumbled. With a wet crunch the other mage tumbled down and Connor chased him so when he hit the ground the black head of Geoffrey’s staff was glowing threateningly over the officer’s bleeding face.

He won.

He wanted to gloat. He wanted to say something sharp and spiteful and then throw the staff on the ground and walk off. Be the threatening, angry force of nature someone like the Warden Commander or the Champion or the Inquisitor always came off like in the stories told about them. He wanted to put this stupid judgemental rivalry to rest by literally taking the militia’s weapons and bludgeoning them into submission with them. He  _wanted to_.

But instead he pulled the staff up and offered his hand instead. The Captain brought a hand up to his nose to touch and see the blood for himself, confirming the red flood down his face before looking at Connor’s hand properly. He took it and Connor helped pull him up.

“Did I do better?” He asked, wincing as his body felt brittle with the adrenaline slowly seeping away and the taint crackling aggressively in his veins.

“You fight well when you’re mad.” The Captain acknowledged, touching his face again and letting his own staff stand next to him.

“I’m a better healer than front-liner, sir.” He held up his palm but didn’t extend it. “May I?”

It took a moment for the Captain to consider it, but he gave a small nod.

Connor’s fingertips drew several small circles enrobed in blue smoke, his mind calming down and recalling the sensation of soft white pearls passing under his fingers, the scent of dried lavender petals hidden in a black velvet box. Very few memories of his life before the Circle helped with his magic, but this one did, and he asked the Captain’s permission again before taking the elf’s nose firmly and giving it the physical push it needed for his magic to gather the rest and undo the damage. He healed down the edge of the man’s jaw as well, finding the hairline fractures from that connecting blow between the staff and his face. When that was done Connor pulled away, and the Captain offered a hand for him to shake.

“Captain Maheron Lavellan.” He said when their hands clasped. “I didn’t introduce myself before the match and that was rude of me.”

“I served your clanswoman at Skyhold, Captain Lavellan.” Connor said as politely as he could.

The arena was filled with chatter and laughter and cheering. The children had vanished from the rooftops and as Connor’s friends (he caught himself a little with that thought, his  _friends)_  approached to congratulate him, there was a comfortable kind of peace.

Corporal Sephri had the look of someone who had very discreetly thrown up while no one was looking, and Connor made a sincere remark that if he’d had the herbs for it he could have brewed something to make her feel better after the effects of the glyph. She was too busy being in awe of Hawke and then offended by the way Connor ignored Hawke’s cheering and friendly shoving to answer him. Sergeant Geoffrey he returned the stolen staff too and weathered the dark scowl the other mage gave him. He did allow Connor to heal the lightning burns down his arm and hand however, good enough with magic that he’d treated his own chest and shoulder already.

Oghren’s reaction to everything was to slam Connor in the hip with his fist, laughing uproariously about the magic. That hurt. Sigrun was a ball of excitement who danced around Captain Maheron and then grabbed Connor’s hand and started bouncing with a tight grip on him that made his shoulders and his ribs and his back all  _hurt so much_  he wheezed. Gevenieve addressed the elf as an equal due to their shared rank and could not hold back a worried comment about the mages fighting three against one.

“Clearly, Warden Guerrin could handle it.” Was all one Captain had to say to the other.

Nathaniel called Connor a fool but his smile meant the words didn’t count. He made his farewell from the group and informed them that he would be back from the Wending Wood by the end of the week.

“What does the victor want as his spoils?” Hawke was especially rough with him and not to be nice either. He specifically asked if Connor’s chest hurt from the blow Lavellan had given him and then proceeded to clap him  _hard_  on the chest with one hand. He pointed out that his new robe was dirty from all the fighting and punched his bruised shoulder.

“ _Lunch_.” He wheezed and tried to escape the abuses. The taint had been stirred up by his anger and adrenaline and now his insides were beginning to twist in hunger. “And the Silver Order’s suggestions for the best way to commission a new staff at Vigil’s Keep.”

“I think we can work with that.” Captain Lavellan told him.

Maybe the Silver Mages weren’t so bad after all.

 


	4. A Healthy Hobby

When you didn’t have duties in a place, it was very easy to become bored of it.

Vigil’s keep was bustling, active, _vibrant_ even, but Connor quickly realized he had no place in it beyond eating, sleeping, and wandering around dong absolutely nothing useful. Despite his display three days ago he did not enjoy sparring, and once the technicalities were hammered out with Captain Lavellan’s aid to get him a new staff, Connor became listless.

Most of what was in the Vigil’s library were books of history, farmer’s almanacs, taxation records, land deeds, old maps and technical volumes. There were several books on magic but they were elementary for the most part and Connor couldn’t convince himself he needed to brush up his skills at such a basic level. He did find one interesting book on herbs and medicines, but it was one he’d read at Skyhold as well and he hung on to it more out of familiarity than utility.

Hawke’s library was significantly more interesting.

“Oh… this is… a lot of books.”

“What? Did you think I was lying about it?”

Hawke had a job around Vigil’s Keep: he did handy jobs about the different buildings to help the Keep stay in order. He was a steady labourer with a strong back and a firm grasp of how to wield a hammer and frame a doorway. If his door was closed then he was doubtless off somewhere putting a fresh coat of paint on something or working out how to make a squeaky hinge shut up and do its job. When he was in his room, he was reading.

“No, but this… is a _lot_ of books.”

The Wardens each had the same basic pieces of furniture. Hawke and Connor’s rooms were laid out exactly the same except the senior warden had swapped the position of his bookshelf and standing closet. His clothes were kept in the corner by the door out into the hall, his books, or at least some of them, were by the balcony door and its natural light. His shelf was filled with books and a few pieces of memorabilia: a letter box, a broken dagger, a Templar shield, a jerkin on the wall with a family crest on it.

He had a plush red rug on his stone floor and a fine green reading chair, but the true guests of honour in the room were the books.

Wood bound, leather bound, gilded, enamelled, wood-cut, hide-pressed. Big, small, fat, thin, folios with rough edges from the knives that had cut them open, steam-pressed vellum in perfect lines. They overwhelmed the shelf and crowded his writing desk, a stack of them was under his bed and any time Connor wandered by there was always at least one book left in the middle of the floor or resting on a sill or just somewhere and visible.

“We didn’t have much money for books before the Blight.” Hawke explained from a relaxed pose laying flat in the middle of his bed, one red leather title between his fingers as he spoke. “But my parents loved the ones we had anyways. Father was a run-away from the Kirkwall Circle and mother was raised as a noblewoman. Marian and I don’t have any children between us so it’s not like I’ve much need to save my stipend up for someone else’s benefit.”

“Do you actually read them all?” Connor asked, picking up a midnight blue book with a constellation on it, flipping through the airy pages of a stargazer’s almanac.

“What else do you do with books?”

His collection included folk-tales from several parts of Thedas, local histories, beloved fables, and several copies of the Chant of Light each in gorgeous and lovingly embellished covers. He had at least one or two books on anything: love stories, poetry, ballads, song books, treatises on the Grey Wardens, histories of the Blights, history of Amaranthine, of Ferelden, of Kirkwall. Manuals and lectures on the proper construction and maintenance of buildings, on how to sail a ship, on how to weave netting, on how to plant crops, on how to…

“Can I borrow this one?” He absently remembered to ask.

“You’ve been standing there reading it for the last ten minutes, so I guess you can.” Hawke said dryly, neither of them looking up from the pages in front of them. Connor was sort of aware of the other warden stretching out his arm and indicating the green chair, and since it seemed like a better idea than either continuing to stand or going to his own room to quietly read all by himself, he accepted.

“You haven’t made a single medicine thing since we got home.” Hawke said about two chapters later as Connor stared hard at the page in front of him trying to commit the recipe for burn-balms to memory. “I thought you were all about that apothecary stuff?”

“Hard to make something from nothing.” Connor answered, wishing he had something to take notes on as he turned the page and found a curious application for spindleweed… “No reagents, no utensils to work with.” Bottles, droppers, vials, distilling pots, even a simple rolling pin or cheese cloth.

“It’s a fucking fortress, Guerrin.” Hawke said as he turned the page of his book. “ _Ask._ ”

On his fifth day at the Vigil Connor asked Seneschal Garevel if he could speak to the fortress’ apothecary.

“Mm… well, there’s Mistress Valora who acts as a midwife to the Vigil’s women.” He said, stroking the small tuft of blond hair under his lower lip. “She’s usually good to fix you up with something if you’re feeling under the weather. Anything she can’t cure I’m sure we can order from Amaranthine, the artificer’s guild keeps us regularly supplied with what a keep our size ought to have.”

“You mean out of all these people and all these families, there’s no dedicated Apothecary?” Connor asked, bewildered. “Just one midwife for the entire keep?”

“Now now, Mistress Valora and her grand daughter are excellent at what they do.” Connor wasn’t doubting that, he was just confused. There had been a midwife at Skyhold too, yes, but she’d been able to spend her time focusing on issues of illness and labour amongst the Inquisition’s women, not doing that on top of the full roster of duties apothecaries like Master Adan and Mistress Ve’mal of the College of Herbalists. When Connor asked about the college, Gaverel put his hands up gently.

“The Bann of Amaranthine makes sure the city has all the herbalists it needs.” He said calmly. “Between the College and the Formari guildsmen, as I said, we do quite well. Master Ridrick retired last winter and we’ve had no great need for a new one. But now let me ask a question, Warden Guerrin, why the sudden interest?”

“Potions and herbs are something I’m actually good at, Seneschal.” Connor explained in a weak voice. “I earned my keep at Skyhold acting with the medics and keeping the Inquisition’s foot-soldiers supplied and looked after. I was hoping perhaps I could fill my hours here the same way.”

“Hm, interesting.” He considered the idea for a few moments, leaning back in his chair behind his crowded desk and stroking his chin again. “Just because we don’t need it right now doesn’t mean we won’t wish we had someone later. Alright then, what do you need?”

“Just access to whatever tools Master Ridrick left behind when he retired, Seneschal.” Connor hadn’t actually _thought_ this would work. “His glassware, really. Bottles and special brewing pots, specific kinds of tubing and wires.”

“I’ll see what we have in storage then, would you be willing to wait until tomorrow?” Connor was willing to do anything that would make his intrusion any less of a burden on the Seneschal’s time. He ended up being the one to accompany one of the Vigil’s servants into the underbelly of the keep just to provide the simple labour of carrying whatever they found back up to the light of day. Seneschal Gaverel ran a neat, orderly fortress: they found the crates within minutes and Connor marvelled at the way each item had been carefully and delicately cleaned before being packed up in woodchips and old wool to keep them from breaking as they were stored.

He mistakenly kept his door closed for that entire afternoon and long into the evening, unpacking the old Apothecary’s brazier and beakers and vials and bottles and pots. Connor set up the distillery with the _utmost_ care and went so far as to shake his writing desk several times to make sure anything he placed on it would _not_ topple over and shatter. From the physical set-up he fell into the book he’d borrowed from Hawke and elementary tome from the keep’s library, using a sheet of parchment and a bottle of ink borrowed from Sigrun to scrawl out several messy lists, combing through the items until he had a modest set of ten ingredients he could go hunting for.

He had no burning powder but knew how to make it. Connor had very limited experience foraging for herbs himself out in the wilderness. Everything in the Circle had arrived via boat or been carefully cultivated by the mages in pots or the tower’s vegetable garden. Skyhold had relied on a similar system of shipments and the Inquisitor’s garden. Redcliffe in the rebel encampment had been Connor’s only real exposure to trying to _find_ embrium or elfroot or anything except daisies and poison oak in the hinterlands, and that was a few years behind him now. He’d foraged a little bit during the journey to and from Orlais, but Nathaniel and the others were far better at it and had usually found anything Connor suggested looking for before he’d even made it to the edge of camp.

Connor was so engrossed in his work that he barely remembered to take his boots off before climbing into bed. His bed. In his room. He had the book from Hawke with him and ended up falling asleep with it under his face.

When he woke up at dawn a few hours later, he ignored the gentle nag of hunger and immediately re-read his list from the night before. He scoffed at it, silly starlit ideas, and pulled fresh paper to make a more practical one.

He was going to have to leave Vigil’s Keep. Or at least go down to the market and look for ingredients. Somehow, the thought of actually leaving the fortress appealed more to him? He’d never had that ability before, not as a child, an apprentice, or an apothecary. Connor could honestly go down to the stables outside, saddle Issan, and ride out of the keep with absolutely no one and nothing to stop him.

Well, hunger. And duty. Those things would stop him from being gone for more than a few hours, but as long as he told the Seneschal where he was going- he could _go?_

Should he do it? He could. There was only one road and elfroot was the sort of thing that grew anywhere. Spindleweed he would have to find water for and maybe he wasn’t ready to go out on a road and then _leave_ it and then try to find his way back all in one go. Did it make sense to bathe before he left or should he wait until he came back? Definitely when he came back. He would leave the Vigil, gather herbs, and come back to a warm bath and a hot meal.

He could do this.

“ _Oi!_ ” There came a great thunder at Connor’s door and he jumped so hard he banged his knee on the bottom of his desk, reaching up frantically to make sure the distillery and its glass pieces didn’t rattle. “ _Quit sulking! Open the sodding door, Guerrin!”_

Connor opened the sodding door, baffled by the stern scowl he received from Oghren when he peered outside.

“What’s going on?”

“I should be asking _you!”_ The constable growled at him. “Yer scaring the womenfolk, what in the Ancestor’s names is it this time? Hawke hit you too hard? Lavellan call you shem again?”

“ _What?_ I’m not sulking! Look- come in.” He opened the door wide, allowing Oghren and then Sigrun (who did seem worried) and Genevieve (who did not seem worried) to come inside. “You could have just knocked…”

“It’s allowed but it’s _rude_ or so they say.” Oghren grumbled. “If you don’t show your face at lunch it’ll be my wife beating down the door to make sure you eat something.”

“I’ll be sure to eat twice my portion. I’ve just- been very involved is all.”

Sigrun pulled in a long, sharp, excited gasp and fluttered over to Connor’s desk in amazement.

“What- is this!?” She touched nothing, but ducked this way and that and bent her short head around each and every part. The beakers she closed one eye to gaze through, the vials in their wooden stands she giggled over, clearly tempted to poke them with her fingertips but holding off out of respect for whatever it was.

“The tall one is a distillery.” Connor explained. “It’s important for a lot of potion making.”

“ _It’s so cool!_ ” She squeaked. “The Commander has one but it’s got a bunch more bubbles and tubes in it! I have no idea what he uses it for but it’s up in his rooms and Kieran’s the only one with a key besides the Seneschal.”

“You act like you ain’t never seen a brewery down in Orzammar.” Oghren grumbled at the other dwarf’s sparkling enthusiasm.

“From _Dust Town?_ Never. And human ones are so _tiny_ too! Look at it! Does it make any noise, Guerrin?”

“Uuh…” Connor had to think about that. Most of the noises a glass set-up designed to collect oils and essences could make would be very bad. “I guess it sort of gurgles a bit when it gets going. I haven’t tested this one yet to make sure there are no leaks.”

“Can I watch when you do!” Sigrun was overwhelmed.

“It might be boring, but I guess so?” he would be all right with that, but only if everything worked the first time and since he was the one who’d done the fixing and fitting- no, it probably wouldn’t work the first time. “I just need something to put in it. I was going to see if I could leave the Vigil today and look for reagents.”

Sigrun stuck her hand in the air, swinging up on her toes and wiggling her fingers like they were in a circle classroom.

“Pick me!” She gasped. “Oh! Pick me! I wanna go! I wanna put stuff in it!” Her enthusiasm was endearing enough that Connor coughed into his hand and tried to control his smile.

“Um- okay? That might be nice.”

“Hmm…” Genevieve had said nothing since entering the room, but Connor looked now and the Orlesian warden was gently running the pad of her finger back and forth over one of her wide lips. Her dark eyes were watching the distillery curiously even though it wasn’t doing anything. Then she looked at Connor. “If I gave you flowers to put in it, Connor, could you make oil from them?”

“Like roses or lavender? Quite easily, yes.”

“You could use them to test the connections before risking the herbs. Or you just boil water and I’m simply speaking out of turn. I’m just glad you were excited about this and not upset about something we didn’t know about, Connor.” The way her accent pulled on his name like that, _Conneur_. It was familiar. He liked when she did that.

“I’m doing quite well, Captain.” Connor answered with a smile. “And if it’s rose water you want, I can do that in no more than an hour once this is up and ready.”

“What about lilac and mint?” Oghren asked and the room went quiet for a moment. Connor had expected anything coming out of Oghren’s mouth to reference alcohol and wasn’t sure what this was. “Clean your ears out, boy, you heard me.”

“I… don’t know much about combining fragrances.” Connor admitted slowly. “But, if I can find a book on perfumery in Amaranthine or someplace else then… I’ll do my best.”

“Good enough.” Oghren grunted. “Now go eat!”

“I will! I just-”

“ _Now!_ ”

Connor took his lunch and then sat there and ate through a second helping _just because_ he saw Mistress Felsi, Oghren’s wife and ruler of the Vigil’s kitchen, _scowling_ from her place by the servant’s swinging doors. He filled himself up with food until he noticed her leave, and then went back to his room to prepare.

He and Sigrun rode out from Vigil’s Keep with little more than a word to Garevel, who may have not even heard them. They rode less than three miles before dismounting at a grassy bend in the rolling hills and led their horses down through the thick grasses and wild land towards a glittering brook.

Spindleweed was a necessary component in both medicines and reactives- the things people liked to stuff in bottles and throw at their enemies. True to its name the floopy, pink-ish plant was spiny and unpleasant to touch, but its roots were a wonderful thickening agent Connor had learned to use well. Elfroot was a weed by all accounts and grew thickly in patches of deep green between the lighter grasses. Connor would have liked to search for Embrium as well but their hillside didn’t have enough trees, and they’d left too late in the afternoon to go searching for another spot. Still, he was happier than he’d thought he’d be with the haul.

“What’s with that face?” Again, Connor was _happy_ as they took to the road and headed back towards the Vigil’s towers. He felt good. He’d done good. He was happy, right? “C’mon, Guerrin, we’re way out here! There’s no reason to keep clammed up.”

“Sorry, I’m just thinking.”

“About that cool bubbler in your room?”

Connor laughed. He didn’t expect to and it surprised him.

“Is that what we should call it from now on?”

“Totally!”

Connor thought and he thought hard as he sat down to dinner and then cleaned up from the sticky dew and dirt of foraging. He tested the distiller that night with a full round-bottom flask of water he boiled with an enchanted flame, and when no steam escaped he put his excitement aside and got himself into bed at a decent time of night.

The next morning the thing he was thinking needed to come out- but he resisted. He took a trio of fresh pink roses from Genevieve and soaked the petals in the distilled water, then cast his fire again and let the device do its work. The oil wasn’t perfect but it was his first time and he was nervous about the heat- he would have to make burning powder soon if he wanted a flame that wasn’t tied to his own anxiety.

Genevieve didn’t seem to care and was delighted with the little bottle he presented to her. She kissed him on the cheek and the mage hid in his room for hours until he was relatively sure his scarred face had calmed down.

His room smelled like roses for the rest of the day. Even when he found the ingredients by combing through the Vigil’s active market and purchased the sands and minerals he needed for his powder, rose hung heavy and resisted the open door’s efforts to take the smell away. He spent the day working with his small pestle and mortar, pleased with the flat clay plate from the apothecary’s crate but disappointed that there was no larger mortar for him to grind with. He mixed the chalky powder with a chunk of lard from the market and mixed until he had a rich grey cream.

He had nothing to put it in. He washed his hands in the wooden basin in his room for his own hygiene and hurried back down to the market, returning with several mason jars.

He had nothing to boil them in, or fire to heat that much water with.

Connor traded the remaining traces of Genevieve’s rose water to Mistress Felsi so she would let him steal a place by the kitchen fire until the water with his jars boiled. When they were clean he thanked her as reverently as he could and went back to his room.

The clay was tightly sealed in its jar and Connor placed it on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf, far away from the fire of the distiller. He scraped a thick cake of it into the black metal cup meant to be fixed under the distiller’s main flask and lit it with a snap of his fingers. If he added more powder he could get a hotter flame, but the consistency matched what he was used to at Skyhold and he was content with the hours of heat he got from the little cake.

Having to leave his room _every single time_ he needed to change the water in his basin became a sudden and annoying chore. But he had to wash his hands and he couldn’t wash with water that had chunks of lard and chalk in it and then handle elfroot, so he put up with it. At least all of this was better than being bored and staring at the ceiling waiting for his two weeks leave to end.

He’d had the foresight to place as many of his little bottles and vials into the same pot as the jars to clean them, meaning he kept out of Mistress Felsi’s way and therefore out of Oghren’s cross-hairs. He ended the night with several vials of distilled elfroot and put a ball of twine to work stripping, binding, and hanging the spindleweed from his ceiling to help it dry out. He collected the spines to make sure he wouldn’t go stepping on one of them by accident, and when he saw the elven woman who usually did the cleaning on their floor he warned her not to touch the bundles until they dried out _completely_.

“I’ll not tangle with it, Warden,” She said in a curious way. “But what about you sleeping in a room full of that stuff is a good idea?”

“It’s harmless once it dries.”

“How long will that take, Grey Warden?”

“Maybe a week?”

“Ah…” She didn’t have any more questions and probably thought he was insane as she walked away.

Connor went to bed feeling more tired but content than he had all week.

The next few days came and went in a similar manner. His hands were busy and his hours full of tedious little things to watch out for and look after. He burned through a fair bit of coin and his heart felt light when he realized how many little things had begun to clutter his room. Hammer and nails, twine, cleaning rags, a bucket to help his water woes, a new whetstone for his knife, leather work gloves to spare his fingers from the spindleweed, a twisted copper post that sat on his desk and helped hold his tools on such a small platform, a set of different sized bowls, a matching set of wooden spatulas.

His staff arrived from Amaranthine: obsidian flecks folded into a steel body that twisted into a cage around a serpentstone head. Captain Lavellan had suggested he go with a stone known as paragon’s lustre, but Connor had already wasted two excellent staves in half a year. If he spent three months pay on just a casting head then he’d have nothing left for the next inevitable purchase. Serpentstone was fine. He preferred it. He just had nothing to do with it so kept the staff unwrapped but leaning idly in the corner of his room next to his standing closet.

“Maker take you, Guerrin.” Hawke said after about a week more of Connor’s running and chopping and mixing and fetching. “If you don’t quit opening and closing your door every five minutes I’m going to take it off its hinges.”

“Oh- sorry.” The thing that Connor had been thinking of came to mind again when Hawke stood in his doorway and scolded him. “Um. Did you need something?” Connor needed something but he didn’t want to ask for it.

“A reason why you stink of roses.”

“It was for Genevieve.”

“That was _three days ago_ , why do you _still_ stink of roses?”

“I may have spilled some of it.” Connor admitted, and instead of getting cross with him Hawke laughed.

“Alright, now tell me why you’ve got handprints all over your tunic?” Connor felt himself wilt a little.

“I wasn’t paying attention.” He squirmed a little. “I don’t remember what my old robe’s colour was supposed to be, a bit of potion drippings didn’t make a difference.”

“That’s a _white_ tunic.”

“Not anymore it isn’t.” Hawke snorted at him. “Did you come to take your book back?” Connor asked.

“My what?” And Connor nodded to where the book he’d borrowed last week was perched atop three nails he’d bashed into the mortar. He’d almost broken his hammer but at least the book didn’t have to be on the crowded desk. Hawke wandered over and gave another dry snort at his bad handiwork, but then looked down at the copper mixing bowl between Connor’s green-stained hands. “Have you made anything from it yet?”

“I’d like to, but I’m missing a lot of ingredients.” He admitted. “I’ve just been making a lot of basic things like elf and deathroot essences. Until the spindleweed finishes drying I won’t be able to make poultices, and without blood lotus or embrium there’s no point trying to make a potion for drinking.”

“So what’s this you’re mixing?”

“Soap.” Hawke turned a slow, steady, very judging look on him. “Mistress Felsi asked for some that smells like lavender. I’ve made soap before so that was easy, but with a scent? I’m curious to see how it works.”

“So now you’re going to stink of lavender.” Hawke said in a flat, judging tone. He was so grave about it Connor wanted to flick something at him, but lye was dangerous and the oils swirling in the bowl were hot.

“Joke’s on you, I _like_ lavender.” He taunted instead. Hawke folded his arms and leaned against the wall next to Connor’s desk.

“I got my assignment from Garevel just now.” He jumped topics suddenly and Connor needed a moment to catch up. “What herbs grow in Crestwood?”

“Uh…” He had to think about that, keeping one hand over the bowl of spinning oil to keep the spell heating it in place. He reached past his work station and began leafing through Hawke’s book, trying to remember and find the right page at the same time. “Elfroot is everywhere. Embrium is almost everywhere. Uuh… Crestwood is close to Lake Calenhad, right?”

“It’s closer to West Hill but still in the Bannorn. Why?” It helped him find the chapter.

“Right, right. There’s mostly embrium in that area, but they’ve got that great big lake whenever their dam is closed, don’t they? If the water’s up then there might be different kinds of lotus growing.” Was… Hawke suggesting he might bring some _back?_

“I’m not dragging a wet saddlebag full of flowers across the country, Guerrin. I was just curious.” Hawke scowled at him with those thick black brows of his and Connor stuck his tongue out like a child at him.

“I don’t need the flowers, it’s the roots and the leaves that have all the good stuff in them.” He clarified, then it hit him. “Hang on, am I going with you? Do I need to talk to Garevel?”

“No, I’m going with Sigrun and Hestel.” Jorda Hestel, Ferelden-born and almost as cheerful as Sigrun. The warden got along well with most people and had greeted Connor after his arrival, but they didn’t have much reason to speak yet. Hestel’s family lived off the Vigil’s market so she usually spent her free days down with them. “Be back in two weeks, about when you’ll be on your way back from whatever Garevel or the Commander sends you out for.”

“Do you leave tomorrow or in a few days?”

“We’ll leave it up to Hestle’s husband I think,” Was Hawke’s charitable answer. “So it depends on whether he wants her to leave sooner so she comes home sooner or hold on to her a bit longer.” A difficult decision, but thinking about it made Connor look down at the materials in front of him and suddenly feel like he’d wasted a week doing nothing.

“I can’t help.” He said shortly. “At least the Vigil is kept stocked by Amaranthine, it’d be a bit of a wreck if all we had here was some hobbyist apothecary.”

“You can’t help it if you just don’t have the stuff.” Hawke _actually_ offered him some kind encouragement. Connor was alarmed. Hawke wasn’t nice. He wasn’t supposed to get that soft look either. Someone had poisoned Carver Hawke. “You know how it’s done; you just need to figure out where to gather or how to grow it all.”

Say it. Say the thing.

“…What’s that look for?” Hawke froze back up into his normal self and Connor’s alarm faded.

“How… attached are you… to that planter outside?” Connor made himself say the _thing_.

“What planter?” The other man looked confused.

“That big stone box full of dirt and dead flowers separating our sides of the balcony.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Just some elfroot? You know how fast I go through it.”

“Elfroot?” Hawke repeated, pointing at him sharply like this was some kind of argument and not a discussion about Connor weeding the box and stuffing something green in it. “Go for it. Embrium? I don’t care. _No_ deep mushrooms. And no _sodding roses_.”

“What’ve you got against roses?” Connor asked, because he had to ask.

“I swear to the Maker, Connor, if I come back here and you’ve left rotting spider corpses outside my balcony door I’ll make you eat them.”

“That… is terrifying.”

“No deep mushrooms!”

“Not one! I get it, thank you.”

“And don’t get any lavender on my book either!”

“Why do you hate _nice things?_ ”

Hawke, Sigrun and Hestel left the next morning at dawn, the three of them in high moods and eager to go ‘ _put some dead things back in the ground where they belong’_. They took with them Corporeal Sephri and nine other members of the Silver Order because, and Connor only found this out later, technically it was the Arling of Amaranthine answering a request from Crestwood’s Bann to send aid. Whatever reason was behind Amaranthine answering and not Highever was none of Connor’s business, but it worried him just the same.

He ripped everything dead and dry out of the planter in the bright summer sun, and since Connor had no proper seeds and hadn’t planted anything since his lessons back at the Circle, he took his best bet and mixed the elfroot scraps from his work into the soil after churning it up with one of his spatulas. He’d need a trowel, but was too involved in his work to leave the keep and go haggle for one. The soil looked dark and smelled fresh and earthy when he poured water over the mixture, and then just to be safe he went and sacrificed a few of his untouched but clearly out-of-the-earth-for-days elfroot stalks.

It was a weed. Weeds grew like weeds, didn’t they? This would be fine.

Garevel summoned Connor to his office later that evening and the Seneschal didn’t say a word about Connor’s huffing and puffing around the Vigil. He’d probably forgotten, or it just didn’t matter to him what Wardens did while free from duties.

“I hope you’ve settled in and are ready for some excitement.” Garevel said with an open smile. “I have your first assignment here, officiated by the Arl’s signature, and I think you’ll find it most agreeable. Your Commander has specified Warden Oghren and Warden Bouclier to travel with you, with the Constable taking point, of course.”

Of course, that sounded perfectly reasonable to Connor. He accepted a scroll of fine vellum from a box Garevel had on his desk and noted the blue wax of the griffon seal before carefully peeling it off. Why rip his first official document?

Inside was the decorative letterhead of Amaranthine, the great bear standing at one corner and the Grey Warden Griffon flaring its wing from the opposite corner. A black line between them rose to form a tower and trailed down the page as a boarder, cradling the following words:

_Warden Guerrin,_

_You are hereby tasked with two days travel to the Wending Wood of eastern Amaranthine, Arling to Ferelden and beholden to her sovereign King. You will travel bearing gifts from the Arling to Keeper Lanaya of Clan Zathrian, leader of the Dalish people currently resting in safety and peace within the wood._

_In addition to gifts, you will go in friendship to share news with the Dalish. I am further delayed by developments here in the Capital and will not be able to attend the holy day revered by the Clan. Gifts may be presented by the Dalish to your superior officer and regardless of how out of place the token may appear, you are under orders to accept and safeguard it._

_Finally, and most important: find Warden Lieutenant Nathaniel Howe. **Again.**_

_Zevran Arainai has been dispatched to join you._

_Report back to me at once as soon as you have found him. If he no longer resides with the Dalish, you will inform me immediately and seek him out. Under no circumstances, Warden Guerrin, are you to personally set foot in the Royal City of Denerim unless you desire an unpleasant altercation with your honourable parents, the Arl and Arlessa of Denerim._

_The house of your birth is outraged by your Joining. Their reasons are sensitive and cannot be communicated by letter. Our burden is shared. There is much for you and I to discuss upon my return to Vigil’s Keep, Grey Warden._

_Walk safely and in the Maker’s Light._

_-Commander of the Grey Soren Surana, Arl of Amaranthine._

Connor excused himself very quietly from Seneschal Garevel’s office. He was too overwhelmed to know how he felt. He slept fitfully. Packed very little he could think of needing, and left the Keep at dawn riding behind Genevieve and Oghren.

This was his first official call to duty for the Grey Wardens.

He was _terrified…_


	5. Howe Far Could He Go?

Summer was a short but sweet season in Ferelden. The weather was fine and clear as the Grey Wardens rode from Vigil’s Keep with little more than the wind at their backs. Two days to the Wending Wood, and somewhere along the way they would rendezvous with Commander Surana’s trusted friend and agent, Zevran Arainai.

It made sense for Zevran to be ahead of them on the road and waiting: he’d doubtless left Denerim at the same time Surana had dispatched his orders to Vigil’s Keep. It was four days from Denerim to the Vigil and less if you moved fast, light, and alone.

Connor could have said they found Zevran at the crossroads where the road to Vigil’s Keep met the Pilgrim’s Path, but it was more that Zevran found _them_. The Pilgrim stretched from Amaranthine city north of them to Denerim in the south, and when the two roads met it was a large open expanse of gravel and dirt where wagons often stopped to rest and caravans decided which market they were bound for.

Oghren ordered a dismount as they entered the informal camp-ground. There were horses tethered to lonely wooden posts and several merchants had circled their wagons under the shade of nearby trees. Axles and wheels were in the middle of being repaired along with small fires for enjoying a mid-day meal at the rest-stop. A large green pavilion was set up in one corner with Amaranthine’s flag painted on its walls, a checkpoint for the Silver Order who regularly patrolled the area. There were maybe ten wagons and at least fifty people going about their business as the three wardens walked their horses through and peered around for any sign that their contact would meet them here.

“He might’ve wanted to save himself the effort of doubling back and forth and stayed at the crossroads south of us.” A much smaller junction that would probably end up being little more than a fork in the road as they moved south. Oghren grunted and spat in frustration. “No sense hanging around.”

Something touched Connor’s shoulder and there was a hard thump against his ribs from the same side. He didn’t think, he moved with his elbow out and swung it down at what had hit him.

“Very _nice_ reflexes, Warden!” A thrilled, musical voice praised him, but all Connor saw at first was the swipe of blonde hair before a long, grinning face filled with pearly straight teeth and the flutes of two long elven ears materialized. Zevran’s armour caught the sunshine, metal scales decorating his shoulders and arms, a black hood down and sewn to the tunic under a decorated green jerkin. He wore a bandolier containing several glass vials across his chest and a utility belt of pouches and supplies around his waist. His boots were cut high to the knee and made of finely tooled leather.

With all the metal and finery under the summer sun, Connor didn’t know how he’d missed the assassin.  

“Zevran-?”

“Nice, but a little late, you know. We wouldn’t want your lungs flooding with blood so soon in a fight.” The elf raised his hands and gave two quick thumps of his dagger’s hilt against his gloved palm. The knife was long and curved, and flashed brightly when he flipped it so the blade was held out and ready. Connor suddenly realized Zevran had his knees bent and body held down, like a spring about to- “Now, from the front!”

Zevran lunged and Connor shoved back with one leg, pulling his staff off his back and carrying backwards when he felt the two weapons collide and knock the dagger back. He put several feet between them despite Zevran stopping and coming up straight as soon as his attack was deflected.

“ _Excellent form!_ ” He cheered again, “You should be most pleased with the results of his training with you, Constable!” Zevran drew a _second knife_ and it forced Connor to keep his staff out and held horizontally across his chest. “And now, we _dance_ -”

“ _Quit tryin’ a stick holes in the kid!”_ Oghren bellowed, and Connor retreated back, back, _back_ until he found the Constable and the Captain on either side of him, his staff tucked close and held upright to stay out of the way. “Are you ready to go or not, elf?”

“Is that truly the only greeting you have for me, my dear and intimate-”

“Shut your shithole and get your horse!” Oghren’s words trampled over Zevran’s embellishments. “Stab the kid _after_ we finish our work.”

“Or don’t stab me at all.” Connor uttered and he heard Genevieve snort softly. “I don’t like it when that happens.”

Connor did not put his staff back over his shoulders until they were ready to mount again. Zevran had a white horse with Amaranthine’s colours slashing its blankets, a large basket lined with fabric jangling from the saddle. He led the animal easily by the reigns as they walked south down the road away from the crossroads. Just before they climbed atop their mounts, Zevran and Oghren both gave a full stop and turned.

“Before we get going,” The Antivan opened pleasantly. “I think I should clarify a few things. First, and most importantly: I am not here to kill Nathaniel.”

“You’d have a shit time of it with me standing right here anyways.” Oghren grumbled back.

“Maker’s Breath,” Connor swore quietly. He’d thought about it. He’d worried incessantly about it, about Commander Surana’s careful penmanship telling them he had _already_ sent the assassin out to find and assist them. But Surana and Nathaniel were friends, they were supposed to be loyal to each other after working together for so many years. The Commander would never send Zevran out to _kill_ him! And yet-

“Now now, I know what’s at stake so I just wanted to make it clear.” Zevran continued, showing his empty palms and then patting his horse’s neck affectionately. “Denerim may believe the Commander ordered me off for some clever work, but his _‘zero-tolerance for desertion’_ policy is quite thin in places, specifically all of it.”

“Howe has been gone for a week since he failed to report back.” Genevieve told him simply. “But his leave only ended yesterday. It is quite early for desertion charges.”

“Yes, but Soren knows where Nathaniel went and he knows he isn’t back yet.” Zevran explained, dropping the Commander’s first name as a sign of familiarity and possible habit. He cleared his throat a little before continuing. “The Commander is ruthless at The Game even if Denerim’s strategies aren’t always so complicated. Anyone who knows there is a problem thinks he’s signed the execution warrant. The King and I know better, as do all of you.”

“He is worried?” Genevieve asked.

“Fretful, even.” Zevran agreed. “Not that you’d know it by looking at him, of course, but he would not have convinced me to leave his side without making a good case for this search. If anyone poisons or puts an arrow in him while I am gone, I will never let Howe hear the end of it.” Connor was ill at ease with the threat.

“Is Denerim really so dangerous for him on his own?” He asked. This was the _Hero of Ferelden_ after all.

“I don’t think you realize how irritating your Commander can be when he’s at court, Warden.” Zevran told him with a sly grin. “Don’t you remember the fuss and bother he caused at Skyhold? His fight with the Grand Enchanter?” It hadn’t been so much a _fight_ as it had been days and days of- actually… nevermind. “Are we ready to be off then?”

They were. The Pilgrim’s Path took them south for many miles, splitting here and there with signs posts driven into the dirt and milestones indicating the way to Amaranthine and Denerim whenever there was a sizable fork. The names of numerous Banns and their holds appeared at the splits in the clear road but their party carried on late into the afternoon. When they reached the fork that indicated the Blackmarsh and Bann Tanger’s hall, the sun was only a finger-span above the horizon and they let their horses walk the last mile of the day, reigning in off to the side of the road in a glade between two homesteads.

It was a warm summer evening and Connor could hear druffalo braying on the other side of the stone walls, curious but not surprised when Oghren grunted at him to go knock on one of the homestead doors and declare their presence on the edge of the fields. He was the only actual Fereldan in the party and kept his staff in hand as he walked away through the twilight, unlatching the gate onto the farm property and shutting it behind him as a courtesy. When they’d been in Orlais it had been Genevieve’s duty to alert surrounding homes to the presence of travellers at the edge of their field. They were not _on_ the land so could not be chased off of it, but had no business scaring families should they peer out their window to a strange glow of firelight from their waterhole or wonder why they heard horses so close to dark.

The first house Connor didn’t need to go all the way to the door. He met a child only a few stride away from the gate he’d opened and declared himself politely, asking for a parent. The little girl had dirt up to her knees from play, curly hair shaved away in the summer heat, and she was carrying a basket of vegetables propped against her hip, a short-legged puppy scampering around behind her and oblivious to Connor’s presence.

“Why’s that stone glow, serrah?” she didn’t seem to hear a thing he said, dark eyes watching his staff bob over his shoulder.

“To help me find my way in the dark.” He answered, flattered by the curiosity.

“Marla!” A voice from in the cottage called, the little girl scurrying off without another word as her mother appeared in the home’s propped open door. When the good wife saw him she was shocked, but Connor was on the path from the gate, and he touched his fist to his chest with a low nod to greet her. He did his duty and when the little girl offered to sell him a pair of turnips for a bit, the same price her mother charged at the Bann’s market, Connor took a knee so he could hand over two coins at eye-level, accepting the turnips by their long tops. No one _liked_ eating rations.

At the other homestead Connor was greeted by an old man who heard him out and reluctantly suggested the Grey Wardens pass the night in his barn. Connor declined saying the others would have already made camp and started their cook fire by now and the farmer was relieved, offering him half a loaf of bread the family hadn’t eaten that day. Connor was much happier to take the bread than to spend a warm night in a stuffy barn.

Amaranthine was _very_ friendly to her Wardens and the others enjoyed the turnips roasted over their fire, saving the bread for the morning which they enjoyed with fresh cream brought by the same sweet child and her puppy at dawn.

“Three bits, serrah!” It was fun to be treated so kindly. “Four and you can keep the bottle.” Zevran was charmed by the child and rolled the coins over the backs of his fingers several times before finally paying her- one of the coins was the wrong colour, but the Wardens turned a blind eye and Oghren whistled sharply for Zevran to mount his horse and ride with them.

Technically speaking the Pilgrim’s Path passed _through_ the Wending Wood that straddled it, but the fork the others had discussed yesterday was right about a mile before the thick of the forest: the land of saplings and shrubs between the last of Amaranthine’s farmsteads and her wilderness.

 They struck east on a road that had a strange look to it. Most country lanes were two tracks dug into the ground from years of carrying wagons here and there. This road was three tracks. They’d been a few weeks without real rain and the mud had dried and cracked around prints that looked like horses for the first little while, but by the time they’d passed under the forest’s thick canopy Connor realized his mistake. They looked more like deer?

He had never met a Dalish Clan before but he’d heard stories. And to counter most of those stories he’d met many Dalish _people_ while living at Skyhold. The Inquisitor’s Clan had never joined them but she’d attracted a number of warriors from several clans across Ferelden and Orlais to join the Inquisition. Most of the Dalish had gotten along well with one another, others had gone off violently about this or that thing in a language Connor didn’t understand.

Some Dalish spoke almost exclusively in the language of their people, others used it as a sort of slang you could pick apart if you had the ear for it. Some clans treasured their mage-born children, others cast them out as a burden. Some elves traded freely and easily with humans, others made a practice of raiding and attacking, and others again had no contact with ‘ _shemlen’_ at all. The third kind had been distinct at Skyhold just because of how they’d gape and stare at everything shortly after arriving.

Connor didn’t know what to expect as the bright sunlight became green dapples shining through mossy branches. The air smelled cool and fragrant with life. When he saw red between the trees he had to tell himself fiercely not to go running off and looking at it. He could find Embrium anywhere. Now was not the time to gather it.

Zevran led them, not because he was an elf, but because he knew the trail signs that the specific clan they were looking for typically used. He stopped and looked at utterly mundane things every time the road crossed with a rabbit trail or they came to a particularly large tree, holding his chin and ‘ _hmm_ ’ing thoughtfully. Eventually their road became a path, became a trail, and the distinct three-groove track they’d been following faded away under the mulch.

After hours of wandering the forest paths, Zevran suddenly reigned in his horse and stood high on his stirrups. He trusted the animal not to move as he let the reigns go, cupped his face, and gave a loud, sharp cry that echoed between the trees. He listened for an answer for several seconds, then cupped his mouth again and:

“ _No! I already saw you!”_ Taunted them. That was what Zevran did. He taunted the Dalish or he lost his mind and was just yelling at trees. “ _Don’t try that camouflage thing with me! Very clever, yes, but I see you just the same!”_ Connor saw trees. All Connor saw were trees.

Zevran sat again and raised his hand high in the air. Nothing about the trees changed, they were just trees.

“Ho! Hunters of Clan Zathrian!” He didn’t say this as loudly, his voice carrying but not echoing anymore. He was looking at a point closer to them but Connor _still saw nothing but trees_. “I am Zevran Arainai, friend to the Peacemaker; the Hero of Ferelden; he who guards the Wending.”

Connor heard the sound of a bow relax, something you picked up when you trained under Nathaniel Howe to become a Warden. Hearing the bow helped him find it, and he was very unhappy about finding it less than twenty feet away from him, pointed directly _at him_ , until the hunter lowered his painted arms and melted back behind the trunk of the tree that had hidden him. Back to trees.

“We were not told to expect more Grey Wardens for many days.” A female voice said from ahead of the party. Connor felt dizzy when he saw the way the hunter’s multi-coloured green clothes shifted when she walked, pulling down a hood to reveal a shock of bright orange hair that made him feel even _worse_ for not seeing right away. “ _Andaran atish’an_ , travellers. You come with other peoples’ names and crests our Clan knows to respect, but not a purpose.”

“We’re here,” Oghren said, his voice rough and clearly unimpressed with having to do the talking. “At the Warden Commander’s orders. We’ve brought gifts for your Keeper Lanaya and news from the Arling that she’ll wanna hear. And while we’re at it I wanna know where under all this sodding green Warden Lieutenant Nathaniel Howe’s gone and gotten his head stuck.” The hunter seemed… surprised… by this. Openly taken back by it.

“Uh, yes.” She said slowly. “Follow me, the main camp is not far.”

They dismounted and followed the hunter on foot, walking for maybe a quarter of an hour before they head voices and could smell wood smoke. Connor saw the wide white and red plumes of Dalish Aravels between the trees and from somewhere down between the rolling beds of the forest he heard animals bleating and being cared for.

There was the high tap of metalwork by one aravel, the ground trodden to a flat dark colour all around them and announcing the Clan’s presence reaching back at least a few weeks. Sunlight flashed from the canopy as Connor saw people skinning animals and working with the hides, craftsmen at work on wooden bows and crafting handles for all kinds of tools. A few children scampered here and there between the wagons calling out to each other, and there were logs dragged around fires that smelled of cooking, curing, and brewing.

“ _Ma serannas_ , An’eth. You may return to your duties.” Keeper Lanaya was a faint, fair elven woman with pale blonde hair pulled back away from her face, showing off the dark lines of her tattoos where they bloomed from the crown of her head and danced down her cheeks. Her clothing was layers of soft yellow hide, silver beadwork, and grey wraps that protected the soles of her feet from the forest. Her staff was unlike the ones Connor usually saw, a pale blue material that looked like wood but not quite, wound around several figurines that looked like dogs carved of stone. He’d known to expect a mage because the Dalish were led by their magic users, but seeing her there was still strange to him. Maybe it was the blood-writing, it made an odd impression on her face when she smiled at them and gestured for them to sit near her fire.

“ _Anderan Atishan,_ Grey Wardens.” She said in that soft, gentle voice of hers. “I am afraid some of are new to me. I am Keeper Lanaya, guide and voice of Clan Zathrian.”

Zevran, who was not a Warden, was the one who made the introductions. He and Lanaya clearly knew each other. So did Oghren, but he wasn’t much good at being polite and productive with other people when it came to only using his words. He grumbled out answers only when necessary.

The news they’d brought consisted of much more than the half-line in Connor’s orders. No, the Warden Commander would not be coming to visit the Clan for their Halla Rearing festival. The Keeper almost looked like she took this news personally, her grey eyes growing sad and regret heavy in her voice when she politely asked them to assure the Commander that he would be missed but not have the absence held against him. There was an open warmth to her when one of the ‘gifts’ from Oghren’s saddlebags was presented, and Lanaya quickly summoned an elven girl with a thick black braid and no tattoos on her skin to come see what was inside. Connor was curious but behaved properly, understanding the excitement and awe as the young girl, Lanaya’s ‘ _Second’_ , pulled out several small metal runes from the box, carrying them to a dapple of sunlight where they sparkled wonderfully.

“These will be of great use to our hunters, as well as my First and Second.” Lanaya praised, even admiring the fine craftsmanship of the box and its velvet lining. “I will read his letter at a later time.” Connor had not known there _was_ a letter, but saw her lift the envelope from the bottom of the box and smile at it fondly before calling her… Connor supposed the girl was an apprentice really… she called her apprentice back and replaced the runes, giving her the box with softly whispered instructions.

“And these.” Oghren said, presenting a smaller, albeit more important case to the Keeper. “I’m sure you were expecting them a month ago but they’re all there now: signed and sealed by every Bann in Amaranthine and guaranteeing safety from harassment while crossing their lands. Same agreement as last year.”

“I will not say that I was worried, Constable, merely anxious.” Connor didn’t want to know how much strong-arming it must have taken for Surana to make _every_ Bann in the Arling agree to leave a Dalish clan completely alone, but he was the Hero of Ferelden. How bad could a few nobles be compared to an Archdemon? “At times like these I must say I would rather the Arl visit the Clan himself. Sending my kind regards through you seems… disingenuous, somehow.”

“He’s a busy man, Keeper. I don’t think he minds.” Oghren was surprisingly genuine when he said it.

“Please remind your Commander that my offer stands as firmly now as ever.” Lanaya insisted in that soft voice of hers. “When he is ready to join his people, his aravel will be waiting.” Uuh… Connor was glad he didn’t have to say anything, because the sudden image of Commander Surana running off to join a Dalish Clan seemed very alien to him.

The Keeper became fascinated when she noticed Connor’s staff, and dodged Zevran’s attempts to lead the conversation towards questions of Howe. It was strange _again_ to Connor that Zevran’s failed lead was “ _Speaking of that aravel…”_ , did he mean the Commander actually _had one?_ But he wasn’t Dalish!

“You are a mage in Grey Warden colours.” Lanaya ignored Zevran so completely that she might as well have pushed her hand into his face to make him stop talking. Her smile was so kind it made Connor want to have the right answer to whatever she asked him next. Thankfully it was an easy one: “Was Surana the one to give you a place in the Wardens?”

“Yes, Keeper.” See, how easy was that? “I’m very proud to serve under his command.”

“And it lifts my heart to see how far he has come.” She said wisely, albeit a bit strange again to hear because Connor was still fully convinced the Warden Commander had been born swinging a silverite staff and bringing the Fereldan nobility to heel at a word. He’d probably criticized the Templar who’d performed his phylactery ritual as a child.

Connor’s stupid thoughts almost drowned out the Keeper’s next words: “His bitterness served no one. He has earned the peace that comes with forgiveness and the ability to move on.” That… that sounded far too personal for Connor to make _any_ sort of reply to, and he shared a look with Genevieve who seemed just as uncomfortable with the sudden shift in tone. Thankfully, they had Oghren.

“That’s great and all, Keeper.” He came out with, “But a fortnight ago a human by the name of-”

“Yes.” Lanaya was just as blunt. “I know, and before you ask: yes, the Warden is still here.”

“What the shit, Howe.” Oghren profaned.

“Is he unwell?” Genevieve asked, her first comment since sitting down.

“No, however he will not be able to leave for two more days.” Lanaya reported to the great confusion of the group, and then without giving them any more information she stood up and gestured for them to follow her. It was Connor’s turn:

“Is he in _trouble?_ ”

“Only if the suggestion that he will be punished by the Grey Wardens for leaving without permission is true.” Lanaya told them, and she gave a suspicious look back at them over her shoulder. “That is not what you have come to do, I hope.”

“Not if he’s got a good reason for staying this long.” Oghren grumbled, swinging his arms hard and high as he marched after the Keeper. “We all know _why_ he came out here, but worst-case was he’d gone and run off to who-knew-where for some Blight-driven reason. Didn’t think he’d _actually_ just sit his ass down for two weeks with the Dalish.”

“I can assure you we kept him very busy for the first week.” Lanaya said, and Connor couldn’t see her face as she walked them through the winding camp, but he thought she sounded amused. “And his _falon’saota_ has seen to the rest… Although it appears he has grown restless.”

“Oh?” Zevran sounded very amused by all of this. Connor was just confused. Fallen _what?_

They followed a natural path through the camp and came down a shallow slope to where several more aravels were resting, but one was distinct from the others by an array of lit torches and candles set up in a ring around it. There were torn-up herbs and flowers sprinkled between the glass orbs burning away sweet-smelling wax, ribbons tacked to the landship’s wooden sides. Connor had no idea how one actually got into an out of an aravel but if he had to guess he would say from the top. When resting their sails were let down to act as covers against sun and rain, which is what this one’s was doing.

Standing just under that sail and well within the ring of light was their missing Grey Warden. Nathaniel was wearing his black tunic and britches with a simple belt, no under shirt in the heat as he held his bow up with both bare arms. He had an arrow at full draw and let it fly with a sharp hiss and thunk, piercing a target that was as far away from the aravel as it could be without leaving the boundaries of the camp completely. If his target had an actual red and white face to it, Connor couldn’t see it for the quiver-full of arrows already unloaded on its face.

“Alright!” he called out, and two elven children sitting at the next aravel jumped to their feet as he lowered his bow and let them scamper safely to the target. It was an old tree-stump actually, and the children began squeaking and bickering with each other trying to wrench the arrows free from the old wood. Even if he’d removed the barbed metal heads first, it would still take the children _hours_.

Nathaniel didn’t bother watching them. He marched around in a little circle under the aravel’s sail, took a drink of something resting on a small table next to him, marched his circle again, raked his hands through his hair, then climbed the unseen ladder up the aravel’s side and jumped back down to the grass.

As someone who had shared a hold with Nathaniel Howe on two separate month-long occasions, Connor recognized the symptoms of a stir-crazy Grey Warden at a hundred paces. The children had only pulled two of his arrows free.

“Is that what I think it is?” Zevran asked the Keeper, who only smiled. Nathaniel still hadn’t noticed them and kept marching around in his little circle, three paces in each direction all he could find without coming too close to the candles or flowers. There was a hum of… magic? It pulled at the burning roar in Connor’s chest, but it was faint. Close, but small.

“Well strip me bare and slap me like a nug,” Oghren was baffled but in a harmless way. He started to smile. He started to _grin_. “Oh… Oh I ain’t never letting him live this down.”

“What?” Connor asked. He didn’t get it.

They approached and it took Nathaniel much longer than it normally would have for him to notice them. His black hair was long and down, out of its braid. He’d shaved and washed but being caged up for several days had left a weary look to him. Connor was sympathetic: he’d been running up and down the Vigil for two weeks, Nathaniel had stepped off a boat and into a fairy ring.

“Maker, you lot got here faster than I thought you would.” Was Nathaniel’s greeting when he finally saw them, hands on his hips. “I only expected _you_ here if the Commander came as well. Did you leave him behind?”

“In Denerim,” Zevran answered, grinning foolishly, “Where I imagine he is not having _nearly_ as much fun as you.”

“You just got here, don’t start.” Howe sniped bitterly.

“But we have so many months to catch up on!” Zevran spread his hands wide at the array of pots and plants. “Not to mention the desertion scare you gave your poor Commander! I almost cannot decide if I should write to him or keep him in suspense long enough to explain the situation to his face.”

“Listen,” Nathaniel told him hotly, “I _did_ write, but this close to the Halla festival the Clan can’t spare any able-bodies to go running off to the nearest Bann or all the way to Vigil’s Keep to deliver it, and I… can’t… leave.”

That magic was still nearby. Not in the wax or the fire or the ribbons or the sail, but-

It crackled inside the aravel, and then came a quick and exasperated noise before a head and voice together popped out the top of the landship, saying: “I can’t! I can’t stay cooped up in here another hour! Give me that bow, I-”

The speaker was a she. The speaker was elven. The speaker’s white hair was unbound in ribbons down her back and had the same unkempt look as Nathaniel’s. The speaker’s pale skin wore heavy dark veins that spread from the corners of her mouth to her eyes and melded with the bloodwriting decorating her brow. Her fingertips and the backs of her narrow hands were lined, and her slender elven ears were grey and curled at the ends- although not as badly as Connor had seen them for a few short weeks almost half a year ago.

The speaker was wearing a length of cloth that wound behind her neck and down her chest to cover each side, nothing else, and managed to push herself out of the aravel to her waist before she realized there were people standing outside her wagon.

Ex-Warden Velanna of the Dalish froze with her body weight hanging on her bent arms, waited until Warden Constable Oghren sucked in a scandalized breath, and then she dropped out of sight with a fast _“I’m going back inside”_ and not a word more.

“ _You horse-whipped son of a bitch, Howe!_ ” Oghren roared with laughter. Connor finally started catching on and needed several fast shoves from Zevran before he looked and saw the dazzled, weepy-eyed expression on the elf’s face. “ _You got **hitched!** ”_

“Soren’s going to eat his own _boots!_ ” Zevran howled, holding his sides as he laughed. “I’ll feed them to him!”

“You could have told us!” Genevieve cried, her voice filled with dismay. “Howe, the least you could have done is let us know beforehand, we would have prepared a feast for you, or gifts for her Clan.”

“This- this isn’t her Clan.” Nathaniel struggled to say, it was the first time Connor had seen the man look so terribly uncomfortable. “It’s complicated. And this wasn’t- _planned._ I didn’t leave intending to go off and do… _this_. Not _like this_ anyways. _”_ He was going pink across his face either because he was angry at Oghren’s laughter or embarrassed by… by…

“You can’t leave the ring.” Connor stated because he was confused and dumb and yet still fully aware of why this was embarrassing. Oghren had thrown himself down on his back and was kicking his feet. Connor quickly hurried over and tried to get the dwarf to carry on further away from the candles he was dangerously close to kicking, Nathaniel already cursing for the same reason.

“I can’t do another ten days of this, you oaf!” He shouted at Oghren. “Ten sodding days if you knock one of those over!”

“Ten- total? Or ten _more_?” Genevieve asked, bewildered.

“Ten days, from start to finish.” The voice inside the aravel said. “Today is our eighth.”

“Wait…” Oghren was still on his back, reigning in his laughter and staring at the sky like it was the greatest thing in Thedas. “You’re tellin’ me you’ve run out of things to do after only _eight sodding days?_ ”

“Be careful with your next words.” Nathaniel told him in a voice that was cold as winter’s night.

“You’re so stir-crazy you can’t come up with an _active_ , _involved_ , _physical_ way to blow off a bunch of-”

Velanna popped out of the aravel again, hand robed in fire that she threw straight at the dwarf with a screech.

“ _Not from you! I will not hear this! From **you!** ”_ She had such a mad look in her eye Connor jumped _away_ from the fire instead of doing anything to stop it from rolling over Oghren’s armour. He got to his feet in a huff but then immediately started snickering again, giving way to full giggles seconds later. “ _Shut up!_ ” Her fingers curled with lightning this time and Connor’s tongue untied itself.

“Don’t hit the glass or you’ll break them!” He shouted, forcing the other mage to clench her hand in a fist and strangle the spell. “Just- um, well, we found you so I guess we can just leave you alone now, can’t we?”

“Hell no.” Oghren snorted.

“Definitely not.” Zevran agreed.

Connor stared at both of them like they were mad. Or mean. That was it: they were just _mean_.

“You two talk big but just wait until I get my arrows back.” Nathaniel sounded like he was sulking, but he’d also set his bow down some time ago and was climbing up the side of the aravel. He knew what he was doing and slid his legs down through whatever hole Velanna kept jumping up and down through, settling next to her where she’d folded her arms and was resting her face down on top of the landship, defeated by Oghren and Zevran’s laughter. He was taller than her of course but sank far enough into the aravel to be even, bending his face down to hers and saying something gently while Connor tried to tell Zevran that he was being very _rude_.

“Can’t we just be not-awful for a day?” He asked. Zevran seemed to like the comment but rejected the idea outright.

“What do you think,” He said, sliding an arm around Connor’s shoulders and leaning on him. “Do I let Surana stew and stew and stew for several more days without news until I can go back to Denerim myself, or should I let that poor bird out of its basket on my saddle and let him know by tomorrow morning?”

“Maker, I thought you were his _friend_.” Connor marvelled.

“Nearest and dearest,” Zevran agreed with a smile. “Send the bird?”

“Please send the bird.” The poor Commander.

“You know,” Zevran said, “I was once an Antivan Crow, which is a _kind of_ bird, and the word is also sometimes used as a euphemism that I believe Howe-”

A flying bracelet took the Antivan Crow in the forehead. Connor got hit by a boot.

“I didn’t say anything!” The mage yelled, shaking off the dull pain of the throw. “I haven’t said one mean thing!” Oghren got a clay cup to his cheek and Zevran was pelted with an apple core. The only one unscathed was Genevieve, who was standing next to Keeper Lanaya confirming what exactly they’d walked in to.

“Filthy pigs! Both of you!” Velanna yelled, hurling a shoe after Zevran and then looking down into the aravel when Nathaniel’s arm offered her staff. “Not that! I need that.”

“What about-?” Velanna threw her husband’s sheathed dagger. When the Wardens had all retreated past the range of her throwing arm, Nathaniel made a rude gesture with both hands and then the two of them vanished under the closed hatch of the landship.

Lanaya kindly and smugly bade them sit at the fire across the clearing from the marriage wagon, and they were welcomed to share a meal with this arm of the clan.

“If Hahren Valenna were a member of Clan Zathrian, I would have protested the union.” The Keeper admitted. “But between her past experiences and the unlikelihood of two Grey Wardens conceiving a child together… he is human, but even I can see he is a good one.”

“I almost wish Delilah were more of a spitfire now.” Oghren laughed to himself over a thick mug of Dalish beer. “But I know her too well, Nathaniel could bring back a talking Mabari and his sister’d still try and say it had a nice personality.”

“He didn’t speak of her at all while we were in Orlais.” Genevieve wondered.

“No, wouldn’t be Howe if he had,” Oghren explained. “But he was pissy getting on the boat at Highever and hovered around her for every second between the deep roads and the docks. How much of that do you remember, kid?” Connor groaned softly.

“I remember not being able to sleep,” from his tainted nightmares. “Being constantly hungry,” from his tainted blood. “And being afraid of the Commander’s wife.” Lady Morrigan had been a non-entity to him while they’d both lived at Skyhold, but as soon as Commander Surana had recovered enough for them to journey to Highever with her it had felt like every time Connor turned around she was _looking at him_ …

“Fair enough.” Oghren laughed and enjoyed his drink. “They were close before she vanished. Her Joining was only a few weeks after mine with all the shit going on with the Darkspawn fighting themselves under Amaranthine. She hated humans for what they did to her Clan, he hated feeling like an idiot around her all the time. She also didn’t look like a ghoul back then but who’m I to judge what humans think looks good from way up there.”

“It’s a shame Howe is faithful.” Genevieve said, and Keeper Lanaya gave her a curious look from her own bowl of grain and meat. “I mean in the religious sense, as an Andrastian. Clearly it does not change his feelings at all, but it’s disappointing that the Chantry won’t recognize their union.”

“Chantry don’t recognize Surana and Morrigan but we still call her his wife.” Oghren pointed out.

“But she isn’t Arlessa.” Zevran countered, then leaned back with a dreamy sigh. “ _Arlessa Morrigan of Amaranthine…_ I think Alistair would petition the Divine himself to make sure it never happened.”

“But the King and the Commander are _friends_.” Connor leaned heavily on the word. “Why are none of you nice to each other?”

“My dear, sweet, innocent Warden,” Zevran condescended. “It makes my heart sad to see how little you have experienced of true friendship. Clearly, the Grey Wardens must work harder to help you catch up.”

“Ain’t real friendship unless you kinda wanna punch the other guy in the face half the time.” Oghren agreed. Genevieve clenched her fist the way she normally would when about to punch Hawke- but that comparison seemed to give both of them pause when they caught one another’s eye across the fire. She relaxed her hand.

“Keeper Lanaya,” Connor spoke up, and she regarded him with that soft, polite smile. “You said there were two more days left for them inside that ring?”

“That is correct, Warden Guerrin.”

“Good.” He said. “Two days, and then Genevieve and I will finally have another nice person to talk to.”


	6. A Halla'va Time

They spent nearly a fortnight in the Wending Wood.

For that first evening Velanna and Nathaniel did not reappear from inside their aravel, which led to merciless taunting from Oghren who stood outside the circle of candles until Keeper Lanaya finally put a stop to him. They were given a place back at her fire in the main part of the camp to lay out their saddlebags and make themselves comfortable, Oghren explaining that they were expected to stay for the festival in Commander Surana’s stead. Lanaya accepted this compromise readily.

The next day they were able to actually sit and speak pleasantly with Nathaniel, who explained very little and in as few words as possible what had happened.

“She wrote letters, so I visited.” Even Connor knew the other Warden was leaving out heaps and heaps of information. “The clan didn’t trust me until I proved them wrong, and now we’re here.”

“There’s still a pretty big leap between where you were and where you are.” Connor pointed out. “I mean, congratulations all the same, but-”

“Bit of advice,” Nathaniel interrupted him. “If you want to give someone well-wishes, don’t throw a ‘ _but’_  on the end.” Connor didn’t know what to do here, he was confounded by the whole situation.

“So you survived Orlais.” Nathaniel’s bride was much less talkative, but Connor was still around to see her when she took the chance to stretch her legs. The aravel was almost the size of a house, but being cooped up inside of it for nine days would take its toll on just about anybody. “Nathaniel’s told me a lot about you.”

“Oh- nothing embarrassing I hope.” Connor was distinctly aware of the way Velanna’s skin was a mixture of different colours and complexions. The undersides of her arms, her feet, and palms were translucent grey like a ghoul or corpse. Her shoulders and the tops of her arms had darkened in the sun and almost looked healthy, but her face remained pale and sickly looking. She was a very thin, small person even by Elven standards. Keeper Lanaya looked slight to Connor, but she had tone and muscle and the simple weight of good health that Velanna keenly lacked.

He wanted to take a closer look at the veins on her hands and face, to see what it was about the taint that had caused them, but he hardly knew her and he was neither that bold nor that stupid. She clothed herself in a long, pale yellow dress that fell from her shoulders to her ankles, that scarf-like length of fabric from when she’d first shown herself was an addition to the dress that crossed over her front and bound her tiny waist as she moved around the aravel collecting fallen fruit, offered grain, and small vials of water and wine the clan threw into the circle every night for the new couple.

“He said you wedged a High Dragon’s mouth open with your staff.” She said, crouching down and picking up one such little bottle, shaking it from her fingers trying to see what was inside.

“Ahaha- did he now?” Connor felt so stupid. “It was… not one of my better moments.”

“He said it saved his life.” She countered softly, giving him a sharp, steady look over her thin shoulder. He didn’t know how to explain that no, the lightning he’d blasted through the creature’s eye immediately  _after_  hitting the roof of its mouth with the staff had been what helped Nathaniel. “ _Ma serannas,_  Grey Warden.”

“Um. You’re welcome?” He didn’t know what to call her. Madame Howe? Lady Howe? Warden Velanna? Hahren Velanna? Connor tried not to stray too near the aravel if he could help it. The couple spent a lot of their time inside the landship, this was true, but they were clearly eager for their freedom and the ability to go more than three steps in any one direction.

When they were finally released on the tenth day, the clan made a celebration out of it: the couple had to thread their fingers together with one hand and the Keeper anointed their knuckles with wax from one of the candles, and then they had to walk through the camp with hands still clasped until they reached the Keeper’s aravel. The clan sang and chanted and the music was hair-raising but lovely, hands clapping and feet stamping the ground. When Lanaya reappeared she said something to them in Elven that made the clan clap and cheer, and when Velanna and Nathaniel followed her their intertwined hands had been patterned with bloodwriting. The images didn’t make sense just looking at Nathaniel’s left hand or Velanna’s right, they had to put their fingers together for the pattern of Velanna’s face tattoo and a stylized bear for Nathaniel’s house Howe.

The first thing the couple did, middle of the night or no, feast and festival  _or no_ , was run straight from the camp into the river nearby and throw themselves in. If the rest of them thought the summer was warm then they had to remember they hadn’t spent the last ten days in an enclosed space. The couple refused to go anywhere near their aravel or the cleaned up ring of petals, and slept in wet clothes as a part of the ring of Grey Wardens by Keeper Lanaya’s fire. Connor had never seen Nathaniel so relaxed before, the Grey Warden didn’t even rise to Zevran’s taunting or Oghren’s outright laughter.

Keeper Lanaya was patient and very kind while the Grey Wardens stayed with her clan. The others had all been among Dalish clans before but everything was new to Connor and he couldn’t muster up the courage to ask about any of it. Instead the Keeper explained things automatically. She might have been following him just to keep an eye on this strange, unfamiliar  _shemlen_  mage wandering around her clan’s camp grounds, but she made the oversight feel more welcoming than worrisome.

She explained the Halla in their wide open pen at the edge of the river that gurgled by the camp ground, their purpose and significance. Connor thought it was like the reverence Fereldans gave their dogs, but didn’t say as much: he’d learned well in Skyhold that not everyone thought  _‘like a dog’_  was a good descriptor.

The single most important thing Connor did with his many free hours in the Dalish camp was watch Keeper Lanaya heal someone. A hunter came back in his companions’ arms after taking a terrible fall and breaking his leg, and the Keeper was calm and astute about getting him laid down and having her Second bring out the herbs and tools to treat him. Connor hovered near enough to observe, but made a point of staying closer to the Keeper than the injured hunter.

The Dalish prepared their elfroot differently- and they called it  _greenvine_  which come to think of made sense since that was the name in Tevene. Connor knew how to dry and roll elfroot, but apparently the Dalish pickled theirs? And it was the green jelly that formed in the jar that she applied after healing only the bone with her magic, leaving the muscle and skin to mend themselves slowly, as a lesson to the careless warrior.

The jelly would be heavier to carry but she didn’t use that much of it to treat a whole leg. And she didn’t need to use a bunch of water getting the leaves to soften again after being dried. Connor was well-experienced with one situation where he hadn’t had a lot of elfroot, and another where he had never had a lot of water. He wanted that recipe.

It took him two days to work up the nerve to ask for it.

He asked to just see the jelly, hoping to muss out the secret on his own when he touched the cool gel, rubbing it between his fingers for the consistency. It was definitely pickled, it smelled sour, but it was clear and fresh and just a small drop of it spread and spread until he was rubbing it across his palm trying to let it soak in and go away. He tasted it and that wasn’t vinegar or salt in the mixture, and it wasn’t cloudy meaning there couldn’t be any spindleweed. He knew that taste though. He knew it. He just refused to put any more of his mouth in it because that would just be a waste of good salve.

“Have you figured it out?” The Keeper asked him with a smug look.

“This is maddening.” He answered in a hushed voice. “I’ve tasted this. It’s not arbour blessing. It’s not royal elf- sorry, greenvine. It’s certainly not deep mushrooms either.”

“I should hope not. My clan would have even more difficulty finding it in that case.” Oh, that was a clue. She was giving him hints now. “If you can guess the ingredients, I will show you how to prepare it.”

“Greenvine, obviously.” He said. “Distilled water. And it has to be lemon. Lemon rind? Not the zest because I can’t smell it right and it doesn’t  _taste_  like lemon the way it would with the juice. But that  _last_ …”

It smelled wet. Useless thought but it did. Wet and mineral-like, but clouded over by the elfroot’s own strong green fragrance and the lemon that had soured and cured it.

“It’s a lotus.” It had to be. “It can’t be blood lotus if it’s this colour.” The Keeper’s bloodwriting shifted up with measured surprise. She’d said  _more_  difficulty so it wasn’t- that meant it had to be: “Dawn lotus-  _oil._ ”

“Dawn lotus  _powder_ ,” The Keeper corrected, but her voice was quiet and working up towards something, fingers stroking the grain of her staff. “But the oil makes a thinner, more watery gel that can be placed in a flask or skin for easier transport.” So- he was actually  _right!?_  “Very well, Grey Warden, come to my aravel tonight and I will show you the proper way to combine the ingredients. I will admit, I didn’t think many in your order had the mind for herbalism. Your Commander knows little beyond the basics.”

“The basics were part of our education in the Circle of Magi,” Connor explained, not quite understanding that he’d done  _right_  and was going to  _get_  the recipe he wanted. “I- did I really get it right?”

“Come to my aravel and you’ll see.”

The process was neither long nor complicated, it just involved very precise measurements that Connor noted on a roll of vellum borrowed from Zevran’s saddlebag. If not for the dawn lotus component Connor could easily make it back at the Vigil, but at least he knew  _how_  to do it!

He might be able to find some dawn lotus in Amaranthine. Come to think of it, the formari  _in_  Amaranthine probably made the gel themselves for the keep- but Connor hadn’t seen any when he’d received his supplies from the Vigil’s quartermaster for this journey, and why would they have but not use something so effective?

Connor was  _very_  pleased and continued to follow the Keeper around whenever there was healing or remedying to be done. He hadn’t much else to do except admire the white halla or watch the other Wardens continue to tease Nathaniel. Oh, there was also his regular pass-time of having a senior Warden throw him to the ground in a match of skill, something Velanna took to with great enthusiasm as Connor walked around with smarting calves and fresh bruises from her staff. She was small but frightening, he couldn’t even blame his performance on fear of what Nathaniel would do if Connor bludgeoned his wife with a metal stick. She was scary enough all on her own.

What followed were four days of festivities Connor had been told about but not prepared for. The event was signaled by a rush of activity around the Halla encampment, and soft, keening wail from one of the white deer-like animals. One of the does gave the cry, bent her knees with tender hooves pawing the ground, and went into labour.

Connor had never, ever, ever, not once in his entire life, birthed  _anything_. Velanna was not Keeper of this clan but she was trained  _as_  a Keeper, and she and Lanaya leaped into action with Connor most unfairly and unwisely roped in to helping.

Yes, he was used to blood. Yes, he was used to patients who were in great pain. Yes, he could handle the other gross and foul things the body gushed out when badly wounded. No, no, no, a thousand times no, that did not compare with something that was pushing an entirely separate other something out of its own body. Connor’s job was explicitly to keep all parts of a body  _inside the body_ , not… encourage them to come out.

The Halla didn’t need Connor to pet their white faces or tell them they were good girls who would give birth if they just pushed a little harder. They were animals, very important, precious animals, but nature was a better teacher and Connor was only there to assist if there was too much blood- and for a few of them yes, there was too much blood. Velanna wouldn’t let him touch those ones so again he wasn’t terribly certain what he was here for, but she kept him at her elbow and showed her what she did to stop the bleeding and ease the contractions.

He fetched blankets and warmed water, running back and forth as much as Lanaya’s Second who chattered excitedly the entire time about what they were doing and how exciting and how  _good_  it was while Connor just tried not to think too hard.

“We need you to reach in and grab it.” Oh Maker this was not happening. He was a Grey Warden not a mid-wife. He didn’t like the feeling of the lard rubbed over his hand and arm up to his elbow, he was even less enthused about where his arm was about to go. “She needs help.”

“Andraste’s Flaming Sword- my hand is twice the size of yours why am  _I_  the one who-?”

“ _Guerrin now!_ ”

Maker’s Breath if this was what Mistress Valora did all day then Connor was going to forward his entire stipend to the Vigil’s midwife when they got back. Her job was a thousand times worse than his and he fought  _darkspawn_.

None of the Halla died. There was a long and complicated cheer that went up every time a Halla completed its labour safely and Connor sort of had it right by the time the last of the herd bent her knees and laboured her calf into the world. By the end of it Connor stank but wasn’t so revolted by the dreck of warm  _everything_  that came out of those deceptively white and majestic-looking creatures, he was just sick of it.

But he did like the Keeper’s harsh soap. It dried out his hands but banished the scent of blood from anything it touched. He considered the recipe for that ample payment for the devastation wrought on his clothes and his psyche.

Done with the blood, it was time for the drink. This was Oghren’s crowning glory and the Constable drank himself into such a state that the wardens rolled him against Keeper Lanaya’s aravel and simply left him there. They occasionally checked in to fill his cup with more wine, but he was quite sated by the second day of revelry.

Every member of the clan knew how to play at least one sort of musical instrument, whether it was a small whistle, a simple drum, or a great flower of elegant strings and twisted wood that sang like a chantry harp. They all knew the same songs and no matter the time of day for the next three there was singing and dancing and feasting. The dancing was the part that stuck with Connor the most.

There were children’s dances and women’s dances, songs for married men and chants for unmarried women. One dance was for those only over a certain number of years, another three were for those who had received their bloodwriting but not been married. Several were reserved for parents and children, another for aunts and nieces, an answering piece for nephews and uncles. Grandparents and grand-children. Any combination of family members wound up having its own song. Every melody was distinct and yet they all folded over one another like colourful blankets of sound. Pipes and flutes carried melodies through the smoky air and special branches and incense were tossed on the flames to please the forest and ensure another good year for the clan.

Connor thought it was beautiful when Velanna and her husband twirled tipsily through one of the married dances. Genevieve was almost pulled into a dance for unmarried women by Lanaya’s Second when the Warden graciously explained that she had no vallaslin, the face tattoos, and was ineligible. That excuse came back to bite all of the Wardens save Velanna and Nathaniel when the next children’s dance was played and the Second insisted, absolutely demanded, that they dance.

Nathaniel lifted his tattooed hand on purpose and waved the rest of them off. Zevran lied about the tattoo on his face until the Second cast a small magical light near his face and proved him wrong. Antivan skin ink was not the same as Dalish _vallaslin_ , apparently.

The Wardens escaped most dances on the first day by virtue of not being Dalish, but by virtue of how much alcohol the clan and the company consumed, the second day there was no escaping anything. The most fun to watch and most terrifying to participate in was a courting song. It involved a large log being dragged into the middle of the dancing area and fixed in place with wooden stakes on either side. Young Dalish danced complicated steps up and down the length of the log and then at certain places in the song members from one side or the other would jump up and have to dance  _on_  the log, opposite the person they wanted to impress. It wasn’t divided between men and women either, which Connor wanted to be surprised by but wasn’t.

Two dancers trying to upstage each other and dancing for one another ended up brawling on the ground in what looked more like real anger than miscommunicated affection. Two young women a few songs later ended the dance early when one slipped off the log and into the other’s arms. Apparently this was good luck and Connor didn’t see the two again all evening.

But yes this was a dance where falling off the log was a good thing and the bruises proof that you’d tried. If you were caught, all the better, because it was their gods giving the young ones a nudge towards love and companionship.

Connor was just as determined not to dance as Zevran was to see him up and flailing like a fool. The elf himself had enjoyed the courting dance a bit too much, he and Genevieve participating several times and dancing enthusiastically for whoever happened to be their opposite in the procession. Without her armour on Genevieve was far more slender than at first glance, her strength still obvious in the breadth of her shoulders and easy strength she used to jump, kick, swing, and spin as the music and other dancers required. The Dalish laughed and returned the favour with enthusiasm, singing their approval as they tried to out-dance the Warden.

“Isn’t she having so much  _fun_?” Zevran crooned at him, and Connor stubbornly drank his wine instead.

“She is, and I’m very happy to watch.” Connor answered, “But it’s Evie’s  _choice_  to dance, not mine.”

“I’m sure you won’t fall,” the assassin tried again. “Although I would highly recommend it, and the red-head over at that end of the line seems especially capable of catching Wardens.”

“I think she’s having enough fun dancing with that craftsman across from her.”

“Not one for red-heads?”

“Please stop.”

“What about the one in the halla skirt? The hips, Guerrin, watch the hips.”

“She certainly has them, yes.” He put his wooden cup to his mouth again, swallowing the sweet wine that he’d had a very pleasant amount of over the last few days. It was blue. It tasted like laughter.

“I see how it is…” Zevran crooned, sliding his arm around Connor’s shoulders which was something he’d learned to just let the elf do. “Alright, alright… I can certainly work with that.”

“What?”

“Him, definitely.” The assassin pointed and everyone could see it except the young hunter whose back was to them. “You could break rocks with his shoulders, watch when he lifts his arm on the jump.”

“He looks like Hawke.” Connor closed one eye and then the other, watching the elf spring lightly over the fire-lit ground. “Or I’m drunk.”

“I think it’s both, but I understand and acknowledge your objection.” This was the strangest conversation Connor had ever had with another person. “Might I direct your attention across the circle then, to someone else who is also not dancing?”

“That’s a lot of people, Zevran.”

“No no I mean the shy-looking one there, over there. I don’t even think he’s drinking.”

“If he doesn’t have the tattoos doesn’t that make him a child?” Connor’s voice felt slow. Sounded funny.

“He has them, you just can’t see through the bottom of your cup, Guerrin.” Uh huh. Oh, his wine was gone.

“Why don’t  _you_  have fun and let _me_ drink?” He asked, despite the absence of wine in his wine-cup. Finding more seemed like a bit of a bother right now though. “Go flirt with Hawke.”

“Now that you’ve called him that I cannot unsee it. Thank you for  _nothing_.”

“Maker bless  _you_.”

“You are  _very_  drunk, aren’t you?”

“I  _am…”_

“You’re a Grey Warden, how much of that have you had?” Haha, at least… a lot. “Go to sleep, Connor.”

“ _Okay…_ ”

The third, very hung-over day included games such as wrangling the newly born Halla calves, herding the whole flock into sorted groups in their pen, and wrestling a full grown buck down. Connor declined all three, especially the last because he seemed to be the only one afraid of being gored on those massive horns. Not even blue wine would get him to do  _that_.

Knife tossing, archery, relays, sling-and-stone throwing, races, wrestling, tree climbing, basket-weaving, dart-throwing, log-rolling, sword-and-shield competition, storytelling, singing, carving, and painting overwhelmed another two days in the encampment. Finally, and most importantly, came the day of rest.

The day of rest was  _quiet_. It was  _soft._  Speaking was discouraged and the most effort anyone could put into anything was boiling left-overs from the feast to make a mush that tasted differently with every bite. Children napped or were encouraged to forage in the forest while the adults slept off their hang-overs, their injuries, and their achievement highs. There was a heavy air of contentment that sang through the summer heat, or maybe it was just the heat.

All Connor knew was that he was excited to go home after today and enjoy another promised fortnight of leave at Vigil’s Keep to work on his recipes. He’d acquired a sack full of reagents from the Dalish elder Varathorn, and had traded lots of useful information with the Hahren to go with them. The clan and Hahren Varathorn could craft nearly everything they needed from what they found in the wilderness, but not everything. He was eager to trade for glassware, bolts of fabric, paper, or blank journals and notebooks, but was no stranger to coin either. Connor had the bottle from the little girl Marla he’d meant to take home for his own collection, but had traded it to the Hahren for most of what was in his sack. The other items he simply didn’t have, but had struck an accord: if the Warden provided the raw materials then the Hahren would give him reagents.

Connor was going home with Dawn Lotus powder in his possession and enjoyed the quiet of the camp with a lazy sigh, laying his head and shoulders down on his saddlebags. Quietly over his head, Genevieve and Velanna were becoming better acquainted through the Grey Warden’s silent language of hand-signs. Connor had been following the conversation but now his eyes were heavy, he was warm and fed and rested and  _happy_ …

That was when he felt magic. His eyes opened lazily, bleary and unfocused in the heat and light. He blinked his eyes clear and saw Evie signing  _‘what?’_  repeatedly. When he looked at Velanna the other mage was looking at Connor. They both looked towards Keeper Lanaya’s aravel where she and her Second had quietly retreated for the day- together they made the only four mages in the clan. Lanaya had asked them to not use their magic on the day of rest, so…

No, that was magic. Not from the aravel however because Lanaya came outside with an immediate and accusing look at Connor, who was sitting up now. He took up his staff as he stood, signing ‘ _magic’_ with one hand so Evie could understand and get to her feet as well. Velanna shook Nathaniel awake where he’d also been napping in the heat, and the activity was enough that Zevran removed the smoking stem of his pipe from his mouth and swung his legs out of the hammock he’d been relaxing in.

They heard footsteps, very loud in a camp that was tired and full of sleeping people. On very soft feet came a hunter- Hunter An’eth with her shock of orange hair and rough undercut, bow away and face visibly pained by the fact that she had to move so quickly on a day that was supposed to be about being  _slow_. Lanaya went to meet her but they could all clearly see what the problem was.

It was the horse being led by a Grey Warden in silverite armour. The animal didn’t care if it was loud and the Warden was marching fast enough to suggest they didn’t care either. Silverite shone from breastplate and off the wings of their helmet, one gloved hand on the horse’s bridle and leading it with a clear sense of urgency. They wore a sword at their hip and a shield on their back, and it took Connor a lot longer than it should have to know who this Warden was.

The Keeper and her Hunter traded soft whispers, the Keeper’s face showing surprise as the Warden let go of their horse and stormed forward, stopping short just to hold both hands up to the Keeper and make a calming gesture.  _‘Just wait_ ’ and ‘ _excuse me_ ’ communicated with the small nod of their head and the soft dip of their knee. Whoever it was dodged the Keeper completely and swept their eyes over the Wardens. Connor wasn’t the first person to sign ‘ _what’s wrong?’_ , but the Warden didn’t answer.

They saw the company in a state of rest, saw Nathaniel and then Velanna.

The Warden pointed a hand at Zevran, followed by ‘ _Come here! NOW!_ ’ Connor hadn’t known there was that much volume in hand-signs, but it was undeniable.

Zevran came, first with apprehension, then curiosity, and finally with delight.

‘ _My friend!_ ’ His hands and face said, feet trotting lightly over the ground as his fingers danced. ‘ _Please respect the-’_  Rights? Traditions? Laws? That sign was a blank to him. It didn’t matter.

The Warden tackled Zevran.

Full and proper, shoulder to the elf’s gut, and they both hit the dirt in a grappling scuffle. Velanna gasped and Nathaniel swung both hands out at them at a loss. Genevieve bit her hand trying not to say anything, and Lanaya had her arms spread in a show of disbelief. Connor was horrified by what came next:

“ _I-_ ” A familiar, angry, and very  _quiet_  voice hissed. “- _will break your neck-”_  the voice came from inside the helmet before Zevran’s elbow caught the Warden under the jaw and forced the silverite off his very important, very familiar face. “ _And send the body to Antiva for a reward-!_ ”

“ _Not if Lanaya kills you first for-”_ Zevran took a solid punch in the mouth from the Warden Commander and went limp. Not because he had to, but because when the elf showed his teeth again a moment later there was a red stain to them. First blood, good enough to end a fight.

Connor was going to faint.

The two elves picked themselves up slowly off the ground, Zevran placing an arm across his gut where the Warden’s pauldron had hit his unarmoured body with the tackle. He frowned with actual ire for a few moments before wincing and then making his discomfort  _completely_ obvious, following that with the dramatic sign of  _‘betrayal’_  with his free hand. The answer was a cuss.

Warden Commander Soren Surana, Arl of Amaranthine, Master of Vigil’s Keep, Archmage to the College of Enchanters, and Peacemaker of Clan Zathrian, was absolutely  _livid_. The elven officer was short by every measure, his frame small but reinforced by his armour and general manner. His fair complexion was dirty from the road and his hair tangled with sweat from under his helmet. His wide blue eyes had a crackling fire that hinted at how much of his temper was left unspent by that wild display of anger. But he’d tackled Zevran and wrestled with him, something the Assassin was probably better at, instead of say calling fire down or ripping the Antivan’s very soul from his body in retaliation for whatever had set this off.

Keeper Lanaya was caught between outrage and bewilderment, tapping her staff loudly on the ground and striding up to the Commander like he didn’t outrank her in eight different ways. Lanaya was taller than the Warden who’d just disturbed her clan, another nod to his short stature, but Surana pulled his anger inside fast and well enough that when he nodded in acknowledgement to the Keeper and then gave her a salute with one hand to his breast, he looked sincere.

“Keeper…” He whispered.

“ _How could you?_ ” She hissed, then struck out an arm to her aravel. The Commander nodded and immediately followed the Keeper towards the landship, stopping only when Velanna suddenly stepped forward.

“Warden Commander-” Her voice was low, Surana answered with a blank expression and smoothly rolling hands.

 _‘It’s not about you.’_  And he reached to his belt and pulled out a slip of paper, one small enough to be carried by bird. ‘ _Zevran sent this about Nathaniel._ ’ Names were easy, names were just pointing to the person you meant. The Commander said nothing else and followed Lanaya up the ladder where the Keeper was waiting, and both elves vanished inside. Before the hatch could close Lanaya’s Second came scrambling out of the aravel, marvelling at the sudden upset in her quiet day, and the two did not come out again for some time.

Connor and the others, minus Zevran, crowded around the paper Velanna was holding. She unrolled it and the slip was mostly blank. Zevran, after finding Nathaniel and discovering why he’d failed to report back to the Vigil, had sent Commander Surana exactly  _two words._

_Mission Complete._

‘ _That means you **killed** me!’_  Nathaniel shouted with stiff fingers.

‘ _What’s the matter with you!’_  His wife echoed.

‘ _I said send the bird! That meant a message **with**  the bird!’_ Connor could shout too! He’d figured it out.

 _‘He is supposed to be your friend!’_  Evie was just as incensed.

‘ _I’m going to take a nap._ ’ Was Zevran’s slowly spelled out and lazy response. He retreated back to his hammock with his pipe while the Wardens clustered around him, signing outrage and accusations and threats.

All the damned elf did was close his eyes and ignore them.

Nathaniel flipped the hammock.

 


	7. Commander of No Chill

Warden Commander Surana was not an easy person to read, and believe it or not he was a quiet person who took his time putting words together. The Commander always presented himself with an unruffled and inattentive look on his face that gave the distinct impression that whoever was talking to him was the most boring person in Thedas. It was his right as Hero or Arl or whatever to judge anyone who came close to him with words in their mouth, but if Connor had to pick one thing he didn’t like about the Warden Commander, it was how hard it was to talk to him.

Connor had travelled and trained under Commander Surana’s guidance for a month before being sent to Orlais, so of course they’d spoken on many, many occasions. But it wasn’t easy, talking to him. It was completely different from, say, trying to talk to Nathaniel about something, or even approaching Zevran who Connor had known only as long as the Commander. Surana was not only difficult to read, he was also unapproachable.

As a forgotten mage apprentice at Skyhold, approaching the Hero of Ferelden had been _laughable_. Connor hadn’t spoken to him until he’d found himself in Commander Cullen’s office for the strangest interview of his life. Once that meeting had ended Connor and the Commander hadn’t spoken again until after Connor’s Harrowing a few days later, and after _that_ they’d been on the road with Surana giving Connor an intensive course in how not to get himself killed. Almost every interaction they’d shared had been with the Commander making the first move, and the perhaps two times Connor had broken the silence first had been difficult.

Honestly, the only time Connor had spoken frankly to the Hero of Ferelden had been in the Deep Roads, before his Joining. He found it very troubling that the easiest he’d ever spoken with his mentor had been to say ‘ _please eat this so you don’t die, sir’,_ to which Surana had answered with ‘ _Give it._ ’ To be fair, the man had been _dying_ so…

Connor had seen the Commander disappointed, irritated, and insulted before: he would become very quiet, very hard, and his words would burn and leave deep cuts on whoever had wronged him or his men. He’d given Genevieve a verbal _flogging_ at Skyhold to shame her after the way she’d spoken to him. He’d been brisk and dismissive when Nathaniel had embarrassed the company in front of the Inquisition. He was the only person Connor had ever seen bring Oghren’s verbose attitude to heel with a look. His outrage at discovering Velanna alive and sowing chaos in the Deep Roads had put him in such a fit that the Commander had risked his own life for the simple pride of walking to face her. The Commander’s first weapon was his presence, his second was his tongue, and the third was the hand that had knocked sense into Connor early in his training.

The shock of being reintroduced to the Commander by having the Archmage throw himself at Zevran and bloody the other elf’s mouth was _fucking terrifying_. The Archmage who had talked and manipulated his way through the College of Enchanters’ ban on Harrowings disrespected the Dalish Clan _to the Keeper’s face_. The Grey Warden who had brow-beaten the Orlesian Order in front of the Lady Inquisitor and convinced them to march to Ferelden hadn’t even opened his mouth or asked what was going on before attacking. Soren Surana had taken one look at Zevran Arainai and beaten his best friend and body-guard into the ground.

Zevran’s bad joke was worth a more violent and cutthroat reaction than the College refusing to let Connor go, Genevieve calling Surana a fraud and puppet of the First Warden, Nathaniel starting a brawl in Skyhold, or Oghren’s constant disrespect. Velanna he left off the list because Surana had been incapacitated before actually getting the chance to confront her, but he had a strong sense the Commander wouldn’t try cracking Velanna’s teeth just out of the blue either.

All this over a letter? A bad joke? Connor didn’t get it. He couldn’t find the difference that made this offense so much greater. He understood Surana coming from Denerim to the last place Zevran could have been- _sort of?_ If the Mission was complete then wouldn’t he have waited for Zevran to go back to Denerim and _then_ discuss it? Yes he would be angry and yes he would want a better answer for what had happened, how he’d want to rule out the possibility that Zevran had ended up putting a knife across Nathaniel’s throat for some undisclosed crime.

But Vigil’s Keep was convinced that Surana was wading up to his waist in the politics of the capital. He had a small army that had taken control of an unused Grey Warden fortress in the Teyrnir of Highever that didn’t formally answer to him and was comprised entirely of Orlesians. Connor’s family was also giving him grief. Who knew what else was happening in Denerim that wasn’t even specific to Amaranthine and the Wardens, but still needed the Arl’s input? How could he drop all of that just to ride out to the Wending Woods and punch Zevran in the face?

Connor didn’t get it. He did not understand.

When Surana was released from the Keeper’s aravel there was a tension under his eyes and hard line across his thin lips. He was tired. Drained. Oghren had been woken up from his hang-over-induced coma and brought up to speed on what had happened and was waiting with the rest of them. Surana had the entire company to review for several steady, silent seconds.

Finally, out of respect for the clan and its holy day of rest, the Commander spoke with his hands instead of his voice.

‘ _Silence until dawn tomorrow.’_ He said, either to let them know or confirm it with them. _‘Follow me.’_

Hunter An’eth had taken Surana’s horse to the pasture where the rest of their mounts had spent the fortnight, but left behind the Archmage’s staff: it had been lashed to the side of the horse’s saddle and she had deftly removed and presented it to the Wardens before leaving with the animal. While the Commander retrieved his primary weapon he was slow enough to let the rest of them get their gear as well. Nathaniel pulled a brace over his bow-arm and slung his bow across his shoulders with a quiver and knife at his hip, Velanna bringing her staff as Oghren buckled on a heavy belt to fix his breastplate over his tunic, and Genevieve took the time to pull on and lace her blue tunic before lifting sword and shield up with her. They might not need to arm up, but it would be awful to discover they were wrong. Zevran, very quietly even for him, belted on his knives and checked his bandolier before trotting away after Surana.

They followed a rabbit trail that threaded away from the encampment, picking their way through the summer growth and letting the land roll and climb around them. They walked for almost half a mile through the bright greenery until Surana came across a wide grove with plenty of sunlight and even a trickle of water bubbling down from a wall of mossy stone. He took a handful of the trickling water and tasted it, and the rest of them found places to sit or stand near the spring and wait. Connor took a knee by the fragrant grasses and dipped the mouth of his water skin into the gentle flow bubbling past the rocks and into the grove, bathing his fingers in the cool trickle.

“Alright,” Surana finally said, his voice mellow and quiet as Connor remembered it from before Orlais. But after the quiet day and under the heat of the forest, it sounded loud. “Explain what’s going on.”

“I may have eloped.” Nathaniel opened shyly, voice gruff and eyes askance.

“You may have _what?_ ” Surana stared at him.

“Eloped.” Nathaniel explained. Connor realized how nervous the other Warden was. “An unplanned, unannounced, spur-of-the-moment decision to-”

“I know what an elopement is, Howe.” The Commander interrupted. “Why?” He didn’t ask to whom, the who was too obvious just with the way Velanna was hovering much closer to Nathaniel than anyone else.

“Because I’m not going to lose her again.” Was the resolute answer, complete with Nathaniel’s tattooed fingers quickly threading between Velanna’s. “Because she said yes. Soren, please.”

“Please? Are you asking for something?” Surana had propped his staff against the rocks and with the way the land and the wardens had arranged themselves the Commander was several steps above the rest of them, especially Nathaniel and Velanna who were standing at the lowest dip of the brook. With arms crossed he didn’t have to be small to command their attention and respect.

“He wants your blessing,” Velanna entered the conversation and Surana’s gaze was very cold on her. “And for his sake, so do I.”

“I’m flattered you two think I can annul a Dalish ritual.” The Commander’s voice was flat and unimpressed, attention heavily settled on the pair. “And what would _my_ blessing present itself as, exactly?”

“Acknowledgement.” Nathaniel answered. “Acknowledgement that even if you won’t forgive her, Soren, you accept that I have. Just grant me that much.”

Velanna was a Grey Warden who had abandoned the Order and done so under the most frightening circumstances: a week away from the surface and down in the bowels of the Deep Roads. She’d abandoned Nathaniel and Oghren and a company of men without a mage or healer, stealing food and supplies and vanishing into the abyss for _years_. The Wardens had searched, Orzammar had searched, and the Warden Commander himself had scoured the Deep Roads trying to find his missing Warden. They’d found her by accident just as she’d broken away from the Darkspawn _creature_ known as the Architect that lurked further beneath Thedas than any Warden patrol had ever gone, and Nathaniel wanted Surana to forgive her.

Or, as he’d explicitly said, accept that _Nathaniel_ had forgiven her.

“When were you going to report back to the Vigil?” Surana asked, and Connor was certain he heard _‘if at all.’_ somewhere behind the words.

“As soon as the marriage ritual would have let me- eight days ago, now.”

“And yet eight days later, you’re still here.”

“I trusted Zevran’s message to you and the others had orders to observe the rearing.” Nathaniel looked surprised, and he let his hand slip free so he could take a step forward. “Commander I was coming home, I swear to you! I’ve proven my loyalty and you’ve never doubted me!”

“That is true.” Surana’s voice was thin, like he was squeezing the words with his tongue to make sure they were neither soft nor sharp. “Then let me address the real issue here,” his head turned and his eyes locked on Zevran, who was crouched down on the grass and stones washing his hands in the cold water. “What in the Maker’s Sight made you think you could be coy about something like this?” He asked the assassin and Zevran, true to his nature, didn’t even stand to meet the accusation.

“I needed _some_ way to get your out of Denerim, didn’t I?” The dark elf asked, wetting the back of his neck with several palms of water. Surana looked like stone. “You are an open book, my friend. You have been tangled up past your ears for months looking for a way out from under the spyglass. Soldier’s Peak needs your attention and Amaranthine needs her Arl, but the King needs his Warden Commander and Denerim loves trying to see if it can make a dirty elf out of her silverite Hero. I had two options: raze the city to the ground, or threaten one of your Wardens.”

“I’m going to put you in the stocks when we get home.” Surana’s voice was flat and cold.

“You’ll certainly try.” Zevran stood up, all bright grin and a downright cocky tilt of his head, blonde hair hanging in the filtered sunlight. “But don’t you feel so much _better_ now for a bit of exercise? It’s been almost a fortnight, so let me see. As the crow flies we shall say my message took perhaps two days to reach Denerim. You were locked in to your day’s meetings and could not leave without causing great offense to greater egos, but that night petitioned the King to let you leave. Alistair may have pitied you yes, but had you so much as _hinted_ your distress in any way Queen Anora could sense, and counting the days it seems you must have, you were obligated by royal decree to remain _another day more, your Lordship, another day at least_. She must have done it publicly too, an announcement before the whole court.”

Surana said nothing this time, but his upper lip was starting to rise and show the barest sliver of teeth. He was _not_ smiling.

“You arrived alone,” Zevran continued, “You and your horse both appear ragged. Do tell me if I’m wrong, but it’s clear to me that you spirited yourself out of the city during the dead of night and have not stopped to rest since escaping the northern gate.”

“Enough, Zevran.”

“Give the poor couple their blessing, Commander, you’re late enough as it is.”

Connor, who had become quite absorbed in the drama playing out in front of him, felt a vicious sense of guilt start gnawing on him. He wanted to try and unthink everything he’d thought about the Commander over the last few weeks. The man was still, yes, entirely unreadable. He went from curious to insulted to _embarrassed_ without changing how he even set his teeth. But Connor understood the difference now.

Not in Surana’s face, but his reaction.

The College had inconvenienced and drawn out the process of recruiting Connor to the Wardens. Genevieve had been rude to the Commander personally but in an ultimately ineffectual way. Nathaniel had embarrassed the company and Commander Surana professionally, but they’d been on their way out the door right before the brawl anyways. Zevran had implied an _execution_.

It wasn’t even specifically about _Nathaniel’s_ execution either, although it had worked out that way. Zevran said threaten _‘a’_ Warden, not a senior Warden, not Warden Howe. It could have just as easily been Oghren, or Hawke, or Hestel, or Sigrun- maybe even Genevieve. Surana had ridden out _alone_ , in the middle of the _night_ , and travelled three or more successive days to reach the Wending Wood. It was the most dangerous and reckless thing an elf, or a mage, or an _elven mage_ could conceive of doing, even the Hero of Ferelden, but he’d done it thinking Nathaniel was in danger or already dead. He’d abandoned everything he’d spent months cultivating and working on in Denerim and run back to Amaranthine because one of _his Grey Wardens_ may have been killed.

And yet Connor couldn’t pay his Commander back the simple courtesy of not speaking to him like he was some living Tevinter Statue? And yet Zevran would still go ahead and _exploit that?_ No wonder Surana had ignored magic in favour of beating the other elf with his fists.

“You’ve married a human,” Connor was surprised by the jump, and they were all surprised Surana changed focus from Zevran to _Velanna_. Even the mage herself seemed startled. “The chantry won’t recognize it but the Dalish do, how will you expect humans to address you?”

“By taking my husband’s name and adding it to mine.” She answered. “Velanna Serrani’ma’lin Howe.”

“Keeper Lanaya tells me you have plans to leave the clan.” Surana moved on quickly, like the topic was unsavoury.

“With your permission, Warden Commander, yes.” She seemed nervous, Velanna didn’t seem like the kind of person who was supposed to get nervous. “You told me in Highever that I could leave the clan when I felt ready.”

“You were gone for ten years,” Surana reminded her. “It’s only been six months since Highever.”

“And everywhere I look, I see Seranni.” Nathaniel took his wife’s hand again, saying nothing. Her eyes were wide and dipped with a heavy sadness that spread over her words like rain. “I hear her when the children laugh and play their games. I think it’s her beside me when I walk with the Keeper. I expect to hear her voice when I tell the histories, to find her waiting in the aravel for dinner. I’ve mourned again and again and I’m tired now, Commander. I want to go _home_.”

The Commander’s face… softened. It was that special word she used right at the end: home.

“You’re among the people here.” He said and his voice seemed kinder.

“I left my people and ruined the ones who followed me.” She explained with a heavy breath. “At the Vigil I was far away from what I’d known and was needed in completely different ways. I could fight and protect and learn. I wrote histories. I made a difference.”

“You _left_.” He hissed and they saw how quickly his anger rekindled.

“I left our people.” Velanna repeated, voice softer than his, eyes slowly moving down away from him. “And I was ruined by the one I followed.” She was staring at the ground, fingers twisted with Nathaniel’s, and they heard her very quietly say: “ _Ir abelas, ma’falon.”_

“I-” Surana dropped his arms and took up his staff, tapping the bottom of it on the rocks under him. “-am not your friend.” Connor knew an apology when he heard one, even spoken in Elven, and he knew the sound of one being rejected.

“Commander-” She tried, but he spoke over her.

“I’m not your Commander either,” he said sharply. “You are _not_ a Grey Warden.” Nathaniel raised a hand gently, tugging Velanna to stand against him.

“Sir, if you reinstate her-”

“I _won’t_.” Surana overruled them. “I asked what you wanted and you said acknowledgement. So be it.” He gave his staff a hard thump on the rocks. “I acknowledge the bond you’ve forged together. I will act as Arl to ensure its strength and comfort for you both. Nathaniel, your stipend will increase to reflect your married status. She wishes to return? So be it. Space will be made within the Vigil and work found for your wife so she can make her difference. That is what you asked for.”

“Yes, Commander, but-” Surana cut Nathaniel off again.

“I will not expect you to return to duty until she is settled in the fortress. The Wardens have my permission to celebrate the marriage in their own way.” Connor didn’t think anyone felt like celebrating right now. “We leave for Vigil’s Keep at first light. You will each return to finish the day of rest while I go and make amends to Keeper Lanaya. Dismissed.”

“ _Yes, Commander._ ” Connor murmured with the other Wardens. He didn’t know if Nathaniel and Velanna echoed them or not. Genevieve was apprehensive as they left the glade, Oghren watching his feet kick noisily through the underbrush. It was a long, slow walk back to the clan with Commander Surana leading them, and just as the first aravels were coming into sight the Archmage stopped suddenly and grunted something.

“The rest of you go on.” He ordered, but when he turned he was looking at Connor. “Warden Guerrin, a moment.” The sweat down Connor’s back froze, and the rest of the company continued on and left the two of them alone.

He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of his Commander. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of his Commander. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid of-

“You and I need to discuss something about your family.” The Commander told him, looking ragged and leaning his weight on his staff after so much hiking. Connor’s heart sank all the way down to his stomach. “I wanted doors with locks around us first, but it’s always one thing or another with matters like this.”

Connor didn’t want to hear whatever it was. He remembered the line in his orders saying they needed to have a talk about House Guerrin but he’d firmly put it out of mind to focus on Halla births and blue Dalish wine. His insides twisted and he tried to making his mind work and churn out something to say. He made himself remember that this was someone who had ridden like a madman to find out if his people were safe. He wouldn’t set Connor on fire just for making a suggestion.

“If I may, Commander,” but oh, right now Connor did not feel so confident in that. “You’re exhausted.”

“I am,” Surana’s blue eyes slipped closed for a moment. There was dust and grime from the road caking his cheeks and throat. “But this is important.”

“I’m certain it is,” He tried again, “But after Zevran, and Nathaniel, and Velanna, and now you’re on your way to deal with the Keeper a second time- you really don’t have to go through this right now with me.”

“The sooner you know, the better.” The Commander stood up straight, but it was a conscious effort.

“Why not after the heat levels off tonight?” Connor suggested. “After you’ve washed up and had something to eat?”

“ _Connor._ ”

“I really don’t want to know what’s wrong.” He blurted out, forgetting that thing called tact that Surana usually had so much of. “I don’t want to know what’s pitting the Commander of the Grey against my family, because I’m pretty sure it’s me, and that would mean I’m just being even more of a burden on your now than I was before my Joining.” Surana looked at him for a few slow, heavy seconds, then shook his head.

“You’re not a burden, Connor.”

“But my family is.” He countered. “And so are the Orlesians at Soldier’s Peak, and the Silver Order back at home, and-” Surana closed his eyes and showed his palm, patting the air gently.

“I- I know about that. Yes. I see your point.”

“Why not tell me on the road tomorrow? We’ll have plenty of time and little else to do.”

“It deserves to be said in private, not with the others listening.”

“Then why not back at the Vigil?” Surana’s eyes carried the kind of fatigue you only got after nightly raids by Darkspawn, or by riding a horse two days and three nights to get somewhere. “Lots of doors that close and have locks on them.”

Surana closed his tired eyes and nodded, short and heavy. “Back at the Vigil.” He agreed. “ _As soon as_ we arrive. Maker watch over us, if you’ve gone this long without knowing then two more days won’t kill you.”

They entered the encampment from the same place they’d left, and it was back to silent hand-gestures for the rest of the day. Connor was restless and couldn’t tell himself if he was still excited to go back to the Vigil or dreading the conversation to come within its walls. Genevieve coaxed him into a game of diamond back by the fire while Nathaniel and Velanna had vanished, presumably to their aravel, to talk or to pack. Oghren and Zevran were quietly signing what seemed like a very private conversation by the assassin’s hammock, and it was a very apprehensive mood all around.

Surana went straight back inside Keeper Lanaya’s aravel again, and they didn’t see him come out until sundown. The hard feelings between him and Zevran had either softened or the Commander was just too tired to stay mad, because Oghren gave him a large bowl of festival leftovers and Zevran cut a second deck of cards so they could play a simple game called ‘ _how many cards can you throw in the Commander’s upside-down helmet?_ ’ Surana ate well, but fell asleep with half his cards still in his hand.

Connor did not sleep well. He should have, but he woke up several times with the violent hiss of something powerful and _close_ dragging its dull nails against his mind. It wasn’t darkspawn taint and his blood felt quiet, but when he rolled over and looked across the fire’s embers he saw Surana’s sleeping face looking taught and twisted, arms tense where he’d fallen asleep with them over his torso, back propped up on a log around the Keeper’s fire.

It wasn’t Connor the demons wanted tonight. The Archmage grit his teeth and slid his eyes open just enough for Connor to see he was still locked in his dream. He scuffed the ground with a sleep-numbed kick and then seemed to relax, either scaring off or outright killing whatever his emotions had tempted to come seek him out in the Fade.

Connor slept badly because for the rest of the night he couldn’t get past the fear of seeing a senior mage fend off a demon in his sleep. Oh, he’d _heard_ about it of course, and as an apprentice every other nightmare most children in the tower suffered had been from something coming towards them with hunger or anger or fear trying to reach through the veil and devour them. You learned to block it out the same way Wardens learned to clamp down on the nightmares the taint fed them after the Joining.

Hawke had actually been quite offended that Connor had learned to block the darkspawn dreams as quickly as he had. It was a necessary skill that mages had to learn or risk going insane from the constant feeling of being hunted. How could anyone imagine getting a good, restful night’s sleep if at any moment a shade could grab them and devour their spirit?

Demons were attracted by power and emotions. There was no doubting the Commander’s strength, but Connor was even _more_ worried now about the kind of stress he had to be under for a demon to come stalking the camp for him. There was no noise from the aravel meaning the Keeper and her Second were safe and sound inside, and Connor himself had only been given cursory attention. Connor put his head back down, but what sleep he found was light and shaky.

Zevran and Surana were back on close, intimate terms the next morning when the Commander woke up with dark circles around his bloodshot eyes. His body had slept but his mind had been active for most of the night trying to defend itself, something Zevran picked up on at once and addressed with private words. Oghren was stubborn about _respectfully_ getting his Commander to eat a larger than normal breakfast. Genevieve asked Connor what was wrong with Surana but Connor didn’t know how much to tell her. Nathaniel appeared in full gear with his saddlebags ready as the sun peered over the horizon, and Velanna stared at Surana outright. She was a mage, she would have felt the demon too.

As the Grey Wardens saddled their horses, something a little bit stranger than demons happened. Keeper Lanaya came to them where they were getting ready at the edge of the encampment, behind her were two tall halla and hunter An’eth. The strange thing was that An’eth was arrayed in full arms and green Dalish armour. Flutes of pale, pale blue wood protected her legs and arms, skirts of delicate chain mail glittering between layers of leather and mossy green fabric. She had a large leaf-shaped shield slung over her shoulders and carried a long spear. Her halla had a bow and quiver attached to its saddle.

“ _Ma’falon._ ” Keeper Lanaya said, and Surana looked even more exhausted when she called him the Dalish word for friend. “Although not often the gift our clan would choose to honour the Grey Wardens with, this year has been a blessing to our people and we seek to honour it properly.”

There was a silent and yet resounding _‘oh no’_ through the company. Connor remembered his orders and Surana cautioning them that they would receive some sort of gift or tribute from the Dalish during the festival. The Commander had explicitly warned them that no matter what the gift was they needed to accept and safe-guard it. Maybe it would just be the two halla?

Keeper Lanaya raised her arm to present the hunter, and Connor pursed his lips. No, it was definitely not the halla.

“An’eth Athras Zathrian,” Lanaya announced formally. “You have met before, and you, _ma’falon_ , were the one years ago to ease her father’s heart over the loss of his wife Danyla to Witherfang’s curse. She is strong and swift, a clever hunter with fierce nerves. An’eth has travelled beyond the clan as far as the Free Marches. She is close with the Warden we welcomed among our aravels, and has a desire to serve and learn that I know you will appreciate.”

“We already take Velanna with us, Keeper.” Surana was tired, but he still spoke so smoothly. “Your clan’s protection and kindness are a gift we will readily accept.”

“No, _ma’falon_.” Lanaya told him with that sweet, gentle, kindly smile of hers. “You will take An’eth for the Grey Wardens, and I will hear of her fate within the Order by summer’s end. For it was a Grey Warden who safeguarded our halla during the festival, and a Grey Warden who interrupted our day of rest. It is the Grey Wardens who secure peace for the Dalish, who ended Witherfang’s curse, who sought safety and solace amongst our aravels. She goes to you with the love and blessings of our clan, she is our hope and our thanks to you.” Um, the clan was thanking the Commander for fighting on the day of rest? Even Connor could hear the manipulation in this one, it read like blackmail. Very friendly, very kind, very polite blackmail.

Surana sighed uncomfortably.

“Lanaya-”

“This is a personal debt you owe me, _ma’falon._ ” Her smile seemed so… threatening.

“Yes, but…” She didn’t have to interrupt him, he closed his heavy eyes and nodded, too tired to add problems with the Dalish to his ever growing list. “Hunter An’eth, if you leave the Wending Wood with us you will never live amongst your brothers and sisters again. Is this a sacrifice you will make for us?”

“Yes, _Hahren_.” Whatever face Surana made at the elven title made the potential recruit wither. “I… I mean, yes, Warden Commander.”

“By Summer’s end, _ma’falon_.” Lanaya reminded him sweetly.

“My ears may be flat but they still work, Keeper.” Connor didn’t have enough experience with elves in general to know what the Commander meant, but the others around him did. An’eth’s wide grey eyes opened further with a shocked tinge to her cheeks, Lanaya’s smile grew with affection, Zevran snorted loudly, and Velanna clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Very well, An’eth of Clan Zathrian, you will come with us to Vigil’s Keep.”

“Thank you, Warden Commander.” The hunter said quietly, and then led the two halla around to join the rest of them. She passed the reins for one to Velanna, who quickly took the younger woman’s arm with one hand and whispered soft and fast in her long ear. The hunter responded just as softly, and Connor told himself to stop staring.

If friendship was what the Keeper and the Commander shared then Connor was very surprised by it. She spoke formally, which Surana may have appreciated, but the farewell was couched in language that guaranteed the inevitability of the Commander visiting again, which he probably would. And his staying with the clan, which he probably wouldn’t. And the promise of him finding his place among their aravels, tending their Halla, and remembering the heritage in his blood.

Surana’s reply was eloquent despite his tired state, but it boiled down to: ‘ _That’s nice but no thank you, see you next year, goodbye._ ’

An’eth led them through the forest for an hour before they found the strangely-marked road Connor now understood had been carved by three-wheeled aravels, not four-wheeled wagons. As soon as they had room for the horses to go more than single-file Commander Surana took his position at the head of the company, and they were on their way.

Back to Vigil’s Keep. Back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN’ETH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN APPRENTICE BUT GOT CUT FOR TIME / SPACE / PACING AND NOW SHE’S BACK NO MORE BOY’S CLUB WARDEN COMPANY THANK YOU.
> 
> She's really not that big a character over-all, but I was still really disappointed not to have her around earlier.


	8. Talk Shit Get Hit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter is brought to you by the Wikipedia entry on Fereldan Culture. Oghren's surname was borrowed from Philosophizes and his Amranthine Warden fics here on AO3!

Vigil’s Keep appeared through the late morning sun the day after the company left the Wending Wood. Her tallest tower split the sunlight, cascading rooves and battlements fresh and stalwart against the young blue sky. Connor breathed a sigh when he saw the high walls and their open gates, and he could hear the morning market in full raucous swing.

Next to him in the sun Genevieve smiled, and Connor felt better about the night spent out on the Pilgrim’s Way. A demon had stalked their camp again and given him and Velanna a poor night’s sleep. Commander Surana had startled himself awake and must have stayed that way the whole night, because Connor had seen him awake briefly by their low fire at the crossroads’ campground and he’d been the first one up that morning to leave. He was gaunt after a long week spent travelling without sleep and covered it with his helmet’s silver wall, Zevran and Oghren hovering at his flanks before they made their final hilly climb up towards the Vigil.

The loud, noisy, active market reacted differently this time when they saw who was leading the Wardens. The crowd still stood its ground, but there were more smiles, numerous shouts and excited cries. Hands were raised in salute and the Hero of Ferelden answered cheers and greetings with a raised fist, looking around him and making eye-contact through the slats of his helmet when he was able. There were very few Wardens who carried both staff and heraldic shield, and the ones who didn’t make the connection between the armoured mage and the Wardens caught up when they saw the shield attached to his saddle.

Surana’s Herald was the bear of Amaranthine prowling the bottom, the Grey Warden griffon spreading one wing across the opposite corner. Depending on who you asked there was the black, scrawling tower of either Fort Drakon or Kinloch Hold spearing the middle of the image. The rearing dogs of Ferelden were enamelled on to the tower in red to make them stand out. Anyone who couldn’t read the shield would need to be taken aside and scolded.

“Connor.” Zevran’s voice startled him as they rode through the lower tier of the fortress, the keep itself rearing into the sky above them. “You should brace yourself.”

That was a very scary thing for Surana’s bodyguard to say to him, but Zevran was leaning over his own horse to be heard without raising his voice, and he lifted one hand to point high towards the keep. Connor’s eyes followed the fluttering banners of gold and blue, Amaranthine and Warden mingling from windows and waving atop towers. The highest tower of the Keep was what caught his attention though, because there was no reason for a red pennant to sail over the Vigil.

A red pennant with a long white bar rising from the crimson hump of… oh no…

“Who’s here?” Connor whispered, hands tightening around the reins and causing his horse to slow until Zevran reached over and hooked a hand behind his arm, pulling him and loosing the tension so Isaan walked forward again. Redcliffe’s crimson land and tower were waving like a warning. That was probably why it was up there to begin with: it was hard to see a pennant from inside a keep, it was to let visitors and returning masters know who was waiting inside.

“The Commander says it is likely your uncle, Arl Teagan.”

“Why is uncle Teagan here?” Connor felt his cold breakfast break apart and start to boil in his gut, noxious emotions curdling his resolve.

“To cause trouble.” Zevran answered. “Now either you and I can take a back road and enter the Keep quietly, or we walk our path and return home as is proper.”

“What does the Commander want us to do?” Running and hiding sounded good. Running and hiding sounded _very_ good. Connor wished Zevran hadn’t used the word _‘home’_ like that.

“He wants you to make a decision: you are a Grey Warden and this is a Grey Warden fortress. But he isn’t going to drag you inside if you decide to take a quiet route.”

“We ride in.” Connor wanted to _weep_ but he made the words come out. He couldn’t argue with the way Surana had worded the choice. “I- I don’t want to, but we ride in behind him.”

“Good choice.” Zevran gave his horse a soft whistle to move faster and quickly wove his way back to the front of the company. Connor saw Surana incline his head when Zevran began whispering to him, and when the Commander nodded the other elf shot a happy grin Connor’s way.

He couldn’t answer Genevieve’s concerned look without throwing up or crying, his shoulders tight with apprehension. Isaan began to dance and roll from side to side trying to read what the tension running through his legs and body meant. He whispered to the horse and brushed a hand down her neck and shoulder, shaking under his tunic and gloves as he heard Nathaniel’s calm voice behind him explaining things to the Orlesian and the two Dalish: what the pennant was for, why it was giving Connor hives.

They entered the Vigil’s courtyard between her sparring arena and her store houses and other buildings. The wooden arena was empty and the Silver Order soldiers scattered about were in polished armour, walking in perfect formation and standing solidly on guard. There was a rigorous tension in the air that Connor immediately understood when he saw two guardsmen who didn’t match the Silver or Grey uniforms of Vigil’s Keep. They had large, volumous plate armour that made them seem like giants, the faces of dragons etched into the wide plates and hooking onto pauldrons and gauntlets of cold steel. The red tunics they wore under their mail were cut with white and studded with steel rivets, their shields bearing Redcliffe’s standard as they stood silently by the open doors of the Vigil.

Connor dismounted with the rest of the company and tried very hard to hide behind Isaan, tempted to whimper a refusal when a servant in Amaranthine gold came to take the reins and deliver his saddlebags up to his room. He had to surrender the horse, barely able to recognize the comfort of suddenly having Genevieve and Nathaniel standing shoulder to shoulder with him and a few paces behind Surana, Zevran, and Oghren. Velanna and Hunter An’eth brought up the rear, and the Commander kept his helmet on as the eight of them walked resolutely through the open mouth of the Keep.

“And thus your demands are met, _your lordship_.” A scathing female voice announced as they passed from the brilliant morning into the dark body of the Vigil. The fire was roaring at the back of the hall and the iron braziers hanging from the ceiling were churning loudly with light, but it still took Connor several very long seconds to see anything except darkness and fire.

Seneschal Garevel was quietly positioned in the corner and shot a hopeful look at the company as they arrived, but he didn’t move to greet them. A few of Garevel’s trained servants were waiting in an orderly fashion along one wall of the chamber, away from the fire and the two noble figures standing before it- although one young child was by the flames as well. The female speaker was lovely in feature but terrifying in character.

Connor had not _met_ Lady Morrigan at Skyhold so much as been made aware of another figure of strange power under the Inquisition’s banner. He’d been introduced to her properly immediately after waking up from his Joining on the Storm Coast, but she’d just given him a rough look and cryptically said _‘It is as it should be’_ before going back to the Commander’s side. She’d then spent the rest of their short engagement giving Connor curious looks that had made his skin crawl.

She was a mage like the Commander, but a _hedge mage_ , an apostate. Her black hair was braided down her back and there were black feathers twisted into her hair over one ear, dark make-up around her eyes and rouging her full lips. The paints made her skin look pearly white, a thick web of black lace binding her throat before the low neckline of a Ferelden-styled gown scooped across her chest, a web of gold chains covering her skin and sparkling with small rubies in the firelight. Her dress was long and dark, panels of purple and black ending at her ankles where she wore black boots under the purple hem of her gown. She wore gloves that left her fingers bare, feathers appearing again at her elbows. She held herself like a noblewoman, dressed like a witch from some old Chasind fable, and sneered at the man before her like a wolf.

“The Arl of Amaranthine, and Master of Vigil’s Keep,” Lady Morrigan announced, voice thick with contempt as the Wardens, led by their Commander, marched forward. “As bellowed and squalled for by your grace.”

“That is _quite enough_.” Connor felt his insides clench and twist, hoping his stomach would rend and the juices eat him alive. There were more Knights of Redcliffe in the hall, but they were matched by an equal number of Silver Order soldiers, and on the balcony running around the hall Connor offered a scared look up and saw Sigrun’s tattooed face peering down curiously from over the wooden beam. Warden Hestel’s blonde hair was tousled down her face where she had a hand on the same railing. There were three other people in blue around the second level, all the appearances of being unarmed but present just the same.

If anyone should have been tense it was the Arl of Redcliffe, but no. It was still Connor.

“Arl Guerrin,” Commander Surana was ragged and exhausted, but he stepped forward through his own hall and removed his helmet with both hands, holding the winged piece out to one side. Connor hadn’t heard the waiting servant move, but the human boy knew his duty and accepted first the helmet and then the Commander’s gauntlets, his staff remaining on his back and sword at his hip. Another servant handed the Arl a damp towel he used to wipe down his face and neck, rubbing the sweat and dirt off his face before handing it back and addressing his guests. “I see you’ve welcomed yourself into my house.”

“Welcomed is not the word for it.” Connor wanted to turn to ash and blow away.

Arl Teagan of Redcliffe was a tall man, hearty and thick-skinned as the best of the Bannorn. He was well into his fifties and showing his age in a way that Connor hadn’t noticed during their brief encounter during the Mage-Templar War, his cheeks thin and frown-lines cut around his mouth under his strong nose. His grey eyes looked narrow and his face was drawn in a sneer that set itself at odds with Connor’s memories of life at Redcliffe castle. A lot had happened since then and he blinked hard to shove away the sight of glowing eyes and black claws before the memories could resurface.

Connor’s uncle was wrapped in red hide, fur licking the palms of his hands and the tops of his boots where his fine clothes meshed with hardy Ferelden leather. It was summer but Redcliffe was much further south and never as warm as Amaranthine, so his clothes were more practical and well-made than luxurious or colourful. He wore no hat, and his sweeping auburn hair that matched Connor’s in colour looked thin and damp from all the walking around in such hot clothing.

“That you should feel so _disinclined_ to accept the Vigil’s hospitality is certainly none of my concern,” Lady Morrigan drawled slowly. “But here he is, weary from the road and filthy from it too. Or do you call this merely a ruse, your lordship? Could the nefarious mages of Vigil’s Keep have constructed such an elaborate dance solely for your enjoyment?”

“That is not what I-” Lady Morrigan spoke through Arl Teagan’s protest, addressing Commander Surana with half-lidded eyes and a bored expression.

“He has stood here for hours demanding to see you, my love.” She explained in a tone that didn’t sound very loving, just flat and annoyed. “Accused me of stalling, and your Seneschal of being too stupid to know whence your Wardens had gone. It has been all we could do to prevent the Knights of Redcliffe from tearing the Keep apart in search of you.”

“My thanks for your patience, Arl Teagan.” Surana said in a slow voice, taking the hand Lady Morrigan raised for him and holding his palm to hers briefly, standing close enough to her that he could touch a kiss against the back of her hand before letting her fingers slide free from his. He wound up standing next to her and facing Connor’s uncle with a look that said he was both tired but willing to be pleasant. “I had not known your business would bring you so swiftly to Amaranthine.”

“Yes you did,” Uncle Teagan bit back at once, cutting the air with his hands. “Enough of this, you’re the one who moved things here from Denerim and I’ve had enough of your evasions. Hero or no, Arl or not, Surana I refuse to let you turn this into a precedence!”

“You exaggerate matters.” Surana told him wearily.

“The Landmeet will see things my way!”

“Then the Landsmeet may bar me from something I have no intention of doing without another Archdemon on the horizon.” He countered, his voice a bit stronger this time.

“Release my nephew!” Teagan shouted, and Connor’s insides shook and tried to evacuate down his groin. “Connor will return with me to Redcliffe and I will not leave without him!” His ears started ringing with fear, he felt himself going faint and at his shoulder Genevieve raised a hand to help him when he began to lean. Nathaniel took his other side with a hand propping up his back, and it was enough to make Connor lock his knees and try to keep standing.

He was sweating cold bullets and his head began to hurt.

“Arl Guerrin,” Surana’s voice was firm. “There is nothing for me to release: Warden Guerrin did not come to the Vigil as a captive or to pay a debt. He is a Grey Warden of Ferelden and Vigil’s Keep is the seat of our administration.”

“A Grey Warden you sent to Orlais for half a year just to manipulate things in your favour!” Teagan accused. “I know he’s returned! Bring him here!”

“What favour? I obtained a talented young mage for my Order.” Surana checked him. “The Orlesians at Soldier’s Peak are as much my irritation as they are Teyrn Cousland’s, stop trying to confound the issue.”

“But the Peak answers to you, just like Caer Bronach answers to the Inquisitor! All of these orders and factions carving Ferelden up like a pie- I won’t stand for it! And I won’t have your fingers meddling in my own house!”

“There is no meddling, Teagan.” Surana told him firmly, folding his arms across his breastplate and scowling at the Arl. “I found him and I recruited him, the rest he has done on his own.”

“That is a _lie!_ ” Connor’s fear retreated, it fell back like the ocean after a wave and something made it stop trying to rise again. That something was the way his uncle Teagan shouted at the Warden Commander, the way he advanced by a step, how he snarled and looked down at Surana who was shorter than him, but meant to be his equal. Surana was an Arl and a Commander, Teagan was just an Arl.

“The only authority that could have stopped Connor’s recruitment was the College of Enchanters, and they did not.” Surana told him coldly, which Connor did not like: he wanted Surana to shoot higher.

“And his family!”

“Circle Mages _have_ no family.” That was better, that sounded more vicious. “We have no inheritance, no family titles. House Guerrin did not reinstate its son Connor amongst them at the outbreak of the war, during its rampage, or afterwards in the peace brought by the Inquisition!” Good, this was all true, even if it led directly in to: “You had five years to rebuild that bond and you failed. It is not too late for you to rebuild your family, but the Landsmeet will _never_ allow three Grey Wardens to rule across Ferelden at the same time. Connor will never inherit Denerim, he will never inherit Redcliffe: he is a _Grey Warden_.”

“Isn’t that what _you’re_ supposed to be trying to fix!?” Connor felt shock catch his throat when his uncle, instead of listening, roared at the Commander again with fresh anger. “A cure for the blood magic you Wardens pollute yourselves with?” Commander Surana’s shoulders seized, eyes staring with a dangerous touch of anger. “A way to reverse the taint that drives you all madly into the arms of demons? But no! You’re too obsessed with increasing your own numbers and power, with marching an army of Orlesian soldiers into Ferelden and sitting them up on a mountain within sight of Highever while you _already_ control Amaranthine! You’ll only wait a few more years for Alistair to go mad and then attack and sweep up the entire nation for your own, the first rat-eared King of Ferelden!”

Surana sucked in a breath and Connor’s temper exploded.

“ _How dare you!?_ ” He- he shouldn’t have spoken, it really wasn’t what he was here for, but- “What Maker-Blighted Hand gives you the _right_!?” He didn’t see faces, didn’t see anyone at all except Teagan, uncle Teagan, with his thinning hair and withering face and proud clothes stained with shock, staring at him. Oghren and Zevran just melted away so Connor could see the person he was shouting at, and for all he knew Surana had burned away with his own anger and vanished. “The right to come all the way here and speak to him like that! Have you forgotten who he is? What he’s done for us? _How dare you!_ ”

He was so mad- so- he was just _vibrating_ with anger he didn’t know what to do with. The air was hot when he sucked it in and his hands ached where he was clenching them hard at his sides. He wanted the seams on his gloves to pop, wanted the air around him to crackle and spark with outrage. He was angry and _embarrassed_. The other Wardens _knew_ he was related to Fereldan nobility, the Silver Order _knew_ he was the scion of House Guerrin, Vigil’s Keep _knew_ Redcliffe was ready to scrutinize them. But to have it come to a head like _this?_ To have his family, one of the most respected noble houses in Ferelden, behave like _this?_

“Connor- Your _face-_ ”

“Don’t speak to me!” He shouted, his temper finally rousing the taint sleeping in his blood. “Don’t you dare disrespect him and then speak to _me!_ You’ve insulted the Warden Commander of Ferelden and accused the Arl of Amaranthine of a coup! You slander the Hero of Ferelden in front of Fereldan men and women at arms! You stand in his hall, before his wife, and his Wardens, and his knights, and you call him a liar in the same breath you spin your own!”

“You don’t understand, Connor-” Teagan spat out in a rush and Connor pulled his staff off his back: he’d thought of something stupid to do and had the taint to egg him on. “Our family _needs_ you to-”

“ _I said shut up!_ ” He cracked the base of his staff on the floor, because Maker take him every time any other mage tried to do it they got everyone’s attention and made them stop and listen for two seconds. It worked, and his blood boiled past caring that Surana was taken aback by all of this. “You want to use me and my presence here at Vigil’s Keep as an excuse to attack the man who saved my life and brought me here? Then I challenge you! I name you a snake and a liar, Arl Teagan Guerrin of Redcliffe, a disgrace on your fathers’ name! Choose your champion and face me! Drag me back to Redcliffe in chains, because that’s what you’ll need to make me leave!”

“Connor don’t do this!” Teagan’s face was like curdled milk, pale with dark veins and lips that bubbled uselessly. Not do what was any Fereldan Freeman’s right? Connor was free, he could do whatever he sodding pleased and gave his staff another smack, not caring how loud it was with the taint humming in his ears.

“My name is Warden Ensign Connor Guerrin of Vigil’s Keep, and you will _honour_ it!” He announced firmly, anger and taint keeping his chest firm and high. “I, Warden Guerrin, challenge you, Arl Guerrin, for defamation and lies against my Lord. Accept my challenge, or leave with your disgrace!”

Teagan locked his teeth sharply, and Connor heard Nathaniel’s armour creak next to him as the Warden folded his arms.

“I, Warden Howe, stand with my brother in arms!” He shouted in a deep, carrying voice. “Accept his challenge, or leave with your disgrace!”

“I, Warden Kondrat, stand with my brother in arms!” Oghren bellowed from in front of him. Connor realized now that the way the party had broken up meant they formed a V from Connor towards the fire where the two Arls and Lady Morrigan were standing. The Lady was smiling. “If the human noble’s too scared of a human challenge, then let him take his disgrace and shove it!”

“I, Warden Hestel, stand with my brother in arms!” Came a shout from the balcony, it sounded like the other warden was smiling too. “Accept his challenge or _get out!_ ”

“I, Warden Bouclier, stand with my brother in arms!” But she was looking at Connor a little nervously until he nodded to her. This was not an Orlesian right, this was honestly about as Fereldan as Ferelden could get. “Accept his challenge, or leave with your disgrace!”

“I, Warden Varlan, stand with my brother in arms!” Sigrun added, hoisting herself up on both arms and leaning over the railing, she was laughing when she finished the declaration and Connor softly heard her add _‘this Ferelden stuff is fun!’_ to Hestel.

“I, Warden Hawke, stand with my brother in arms!” It sounded like Hawke was right above him, but his words blended into the increasing noise of the hall. One of the servants pledged a hand to his shoulder and repeated the oath, two of the Silver Order guardsmen beating their hand to their breastplate as well.

It was every Ferelden Freeman’s right to be heard by the nobility. Peasants declared their mayors, mayors declared their Banns, Banns declared their Arls, and Arls and the Teyrns declared their King. The Landsmeet was when anyone could say anything, even if they didn’t have to be listened to.

This, a challenge like this, Arl Teagan had to listen to. He didn’t have to personally answer the challenge, but if he didn’t pick a champion to fight Connor and set him straight then it was just as good as picking one and having Connor beat the man within an inch of his life.

Connor chanced a brief, potentially disastrous look at Surana but only saw the Warden Commander standing with one scarred hand up at his chin, stroking his lips with one red finger. He’d been shocked or at least surprised before, but now seemed satisfied and was listening to something Lady Morrigan had leaned down to murmur in his ear. They both moved a little and looked down when the young boy Connor had first seen weeks ago with a blunted arrow and stolen apple wiggled through between them. The boy was tall almost to Surana’s shoulder and had a miserable, almost pouting look on his face as he asked a question that didn’t carry. The Commander answered and placed a hand on the boy’s head, running it down through his black hair before his touch settled on his shoulder. The boy crossed his arms and put on a surly look, staring at Teagan.

“Enough!” Teagan finally said, lifting a hand to try and quiet the hall enough to be heard. “The challenge is heard, it is acknowledged, but it flawed and pointless! I will not have a champion kill my nephew for the Warden Commander’s blood-sport!”

The hall _bellowed_ with disapproval, Garevel cupping his hand around his mouth and shouting disgrace. The Silver Order had their shields out and bashed them with their gauntlets to create more noise, the Knights of Redcliffe present in the room looked awkward and embarrassed even under all their armour. Arls didn’t just say _no_.

“Connor!” Teagan came towards him, stepping away from the fire and acting like he’d completely forgotten that Surana and his family were right in front of him. As soon as he approached the Grey Wardens around Connor melted away, Nathaniel taking Velanna and An’eth quickly to the side. Zevran winked and Oghren shouted an obscenity as Teagan passed him. The taint in Connor’s ears drowned out any old childhood memories that might have made him reconsider all of this.

The Arl grabbed his arm and that was really all the consideration Connor needed.

“Rowan needs you,” his uncle said, like that meant something, like he had any idea what his dead aunt had to do with anything. Connor let go of his staff with enough magic to keep the rod standing on its own, and plowed his fist straight up through Teagan’s jaw. The old man dropped like an old stone wall.

The Knights jostled but didn’t rush to stab Connor full of swords: the Arl had not chosen a champion and he’d touched his challenger, there was no other way to write the outcome. This wasn’t Orlais and there were no games. Either you answered a challenge or you failed it.

“I know no living person with that name.” Connor spat, taint warm and heavy in his blood as he pulled his staff back to him and swung the head down, low and steady over the Arl’s face. No, he didn’t feel _good_ about socking a man twice his age in the jaw, but it made his damn point. “Next time, your grace, pick a champion.”

“Mmf-” There was blood in his mouth when he tried to speak. Connor put both hands on the staff and let white sparks of energy thread and crackle harmlessly around the serpentstone head. Teagan didn’t need to know it wouldn’t hurt, he scrambled back with his arms behind him at the display.

“ _Leave._ ” He ordered. Teagan started to pick himself up, the blood thick and red between his lips as he made it to his unsteady feet. “Leave, disgrace!” Connor shouted and watched him flinch, the Arl stumbling before regaining the ability to walk straight, one hand circling over his head signalling his men to gather and retreat.

The hall was _howling._ The Knights of Redcliffe were jostled and taunted as they followed their lord out of the keep, servants and soldiers following them with abuses and insults flying through the air. The crowd stopped and chanted an old, old, alamarri roundelay about the arrogant fox getting caught in the strong Mabari’s jaws. Any Fereldan worth their next meal would know it when they heard it, the kind of thing children sang at the losers of a game, or that soldiers and servants bellowed after a nobleman was bested for his slander.

Teagan and his knights could collect their own horses or walk back to Denerim for all Connor cared, as long as they _left_. As long as everyone was gone and he was someplace alone and quiet before the taint calmed down enough for him to realize how _stupid_ all of that had been.

Oh.

Too late.

He’d just done something _incredibly_ _stupid_ …

“Maker Be Praised!” Nathaniel shouted with a laugh, slinging his arms around Connor’s shoulders and shaking the rest of the outrage out of him.

“We should have sent you to Denerim weeks ago, Guerrin!” Hawke laughed from the second level, Sigrun and Hestel were laughing too hard to give encouragements, and Nathaniel called Sigrun down to introduce the new Warden Recruit from the Dalish. “New blood? What? Be right down!” Hawke added.

“But- this is something Fereldans just _do?_ ” Genevieve was trying to understand everything from Garevel, who was actively trying to escape the hall and see how long the torment of the Arl’s men would last outside. “They simply- have a disagreement and they _fight_ about it?”

“Our honour is very important to us, Warden, now if you’ll excuse me-”

“But you cannot just punch an Arl and be done with it!” She cried.

“He had too much anger in his heart, Father.” A voice Connor didn’t expect to hear carried through the conversations around him, the excitement filtering outside as the hall quieted. “So much anger, but I couldn’t see it the way I used to- could you?”

“Arl Teagan and I have had our disagreements, Kieran.” Commander Surana was saying, brushing his hand down over his son’s head, the mischievous boy Connor saw here and there around the Vigil, climbing things he shouldn’t, getting into childhood trouble. “It’s a part of trying to do what you think is right: you run up against those who oppose you.”

“I don’t think he thought it was right, father.” The boy, Kieran, said firmly, ignoring the hand combing through his hair. “But I don’t know why he did it at all.”

“I don’t know either, my son.”

“Can’t say they’d approve of that kinda thing in Orzammar. Nephews slugging their uncles.” Oghren cut in and Connor felt his stupidity starting to crystalize. He’d really just-? In front of-? “But the Surface is a different kinda place, and that was a mean right hook, Guerrin. Well, for a mage at least.”

“I learned from the best, sir.” Connor murmured, slowly feeling the dread come creeping up on him. “But… I may… have been a little rash.”

“The man threw dirt at your Commander and you threw fire right back!” Oghren crooned, voice rumbling into a deep, satisfied laugh. “That’s how fortunes are won in the Provings, boy. Don’t worry, you did right. Just stay the shit away from Denerim, will ya?”

“Because my uncle will be there?”

“ _That_ , and you can’t just punch your way through the Landsmeet every time someone calls Surana a dirty name.” Stupid and foolish and rash and short-sighted as Connor was, he curled his lips a little and wasn’t able to help himself.

“I could try.”

Oghren laughed at his enthusiasm, gave him a smarting punch right in the hip, and then wandered off to find his wife.

Connor slipped away before anyone could stop him, and closed the door to his room.

Who in the Maker’s name was Rowan?


	9. in Which Someone Cries a Lot

Connor hid in his room. He closed his door and seriously considered locking it, but remembered Oghren’s warning that knocking itself was considered rude and locks were for when you were away from the Vigil or determined to see _no one_ , so he decided against the metal latch. He scratched his hands through his dirty hair, forgetting his whimsical hope of a bath after a fortnight in a Dalish camp, and began to _fret_.

He’d punched his uncle Teagan.

He’d chased the Arl of Redcliffe out of Vigil’s Keep.

He, Connor Guerrin, had taken a stance not simply _for_ the Grey Wardens, but decidedly _against_ his own _family_.

“Shit.” Oh no, “Shit, _shiiit_ …”

He shoved his hands in his mouth and tried not to whine, biting down hard on his fingers. Oh no, he had not done that. He had not actually _done that_.

Connor took off his gear. He peeled his tunic off and left it on his bed, throwing his black shirt and trousers in the basket for his usual laundry. His skin was sticky and stale from two weeks out in the field but he pulled a clean shirt out of his standing closet and paired it with soft brown trousers, with fresh socks.

His face was dirty in the mirror, hair grimy but not as bad as it had been at any point in Orlais. The dust from the road had caught in the creases around his scarred eyes, making the blemishes appear deeper until he took a rag, wet it down, and scrubbed his skin as clean as he could get it. His tan had faded from Orlais but being out in the forest had kept the contrast noticeable. It would probably refuse to go away until the winter rains settled over Ferelden.

His heart was beating hard, hands shaking. He tried to do anything useful that did _not_ include leaving his room or making any noise. He had _not_ just punched uncle Teagan in the face…

Caring for his tunic took time. It would have to be washed because it was wool and the fabric was meant to take things far worse than laundering soap and scrubbing. But first he went through every inch of it and picked off the leaves, twigs, sticks, clumps of grass, clods of earth, sawdust, tiny stones, anything that wasn’t silverite, leather, or wool really. He rubbed away the dried mud at the hem and was careful with one nail to dig the sand out from between the silverite panels around the collar. The work steadied his hands and let his mind whir at an anxious tone without actually gaining purchase.

“Shit, shit, _shit, shit…”_ He finished with the tunic and reorganized his closet, but there was hardly anything in it. He seized on his winter robe, his robe from Skyhold, the one that he’d been so desperately proud to wear as a recruit and had then almost died in under the Approach’s blazing sun.

It was a mage’s robe crafted from fine, light-coloured animal skins. The inside was lined with soft white fur peppered with black spots. The inner hem was stamped with Redcliffe’s sigil over and over again and _that_ was almost enough to make him put the garment back into the closet in a ball. But no, this was his, and Connor didn’t own enough things to go treating his only mage robe like anything less than a treasure. It had been cleaned by the Vigil’s servants, but not mended.

He took out a small sewing kit from his saddlebags which had been delivered to his room before he arrived. The robe’s sleeves were woven straps of hide and several of them had rent at the seams, so he took needle and thread and tucked the edges together again, the robe’s innate magic holding the threads fast and letting them melt under the treated skin.

The servants had buffed and stained the front of the robe to try and hide the stains from acid, fire, and everything else a battlemage as clumsy as him had encountered in six months. He polished the griffons on the buckles and steel buttons, fixed the snapped threads along the belt, and when the robe was placed back in his closet he attacked the saddle bags themselves, then his belts and water skin and even his boots- any part of his gear that he could get away with cleaning or buffing or making minor repairs to.

The make-work consumed him until the lunch bell, and he ignored that in favour of pacing around his room and trying not to scream from the horror of _calling his uncle a liar and then beating him in the face_.

“ _Shit!”_ He’d done it in front of the entire damned Keep! The Commander and his family had been _right there!_ Every Warden in the Vigil had watched Connor go ahead and- _“SHIT!”_

He found the herbs from the Dalish camp but stared at them, dumbfounded, unable to remember what any of them were for. The distillery on his desk may as well have been a lute and cymbals because he couldn’t figure out what good any of it was. He’d decked Arl Teagan in the face. He’d humiliated the Knights of Redcliffe.

Connor crawled on to his bed and shoved his head under a pillow, swearing and trying to get a grip on the fear screaming through his skin like tiny beetles from a nest. He wanted to shriek and throw himself off the balcony.

“Guerrin!” A heavy hand knocked at the door and Connor bolted upright, clutching the pillow he’d hidden under. Oh no, oh _no…_ That was Nathaniel’s voice. “The Arl would have a word with you.”

“Aaaaah…” He thought he’d say something coherent but no, he just made noise as he scrambled off the bed, paced in a tight and fretful circle, and then opened the door while still hiding behind it. “I’m sorry! Can’t I just tell him that through you-? I can’t face him, I-”

“Sorry for what?” Nathaniel asked. At least _he’d_ had a chance to bathe and shave and looked fresh standing there in a light blue shirt, a single dagger the only thing at his belt and his boots replaced with soft shoes. The Warden took a good look at him and then laughed. “Maker’s Breath, Connor, you’re not in _trouble_.”

“I punched the Arl of Redcliffe!”

“Only because you started talking before Hawke could jump him from the balcony.” Nathaniel told him. “Right is right, Connor, you know that.”

“It wasn’t my place!”

“You’re a Freeman in Ferelden, there _is_ no better place.” Nathaniel gave him a narrow, scowling look for a few seconds. “The man used you as an excuse to get at Surana, you’d only be in trouble if that _hadn’t_ riled you up.”

“Getting riled up and getting in a fight with an Arl who is also my uncle isn’t the same thing!” Connor protested. “Maker’s Breath- I’m a mage! I can’t just go around losing my temper or the Templars will come looking for me.”

“Now see here.” Nathaniel’s voice was stern and Connor flinched. “First of all, Templars give the Warden Commander a wide berth. Second, there’s a difference between being a wild shot like that Sergeant Geoffrey and being you. Get as angry as you want, Guerrin, especially when you’re in the right, because it’s only human and furthermore you’re more likely to scare off any demon that comes looking for you than you are to give in and turn into one.”

Connor pinched his lips very tight for a few seconds, then said something stupid.

“Do you remember when we were in the Deep Roads off the Storm Coast?” He asked, and the other Warden folded his arms.

“Aye. What about it?”

“Do you remember how you told me not to listen to you when you start going on about things you know nothing about?” Nathaniel dropped his arms with a scowl.

“I’ll knock your teeth out, boy.”

“Oh, probably.” Connor agreed. “But that still won’t change what you don’t know about demons.”

“Well then it’s a good thing we have an Archmage here at the Vigil, and he _wants to see you_.” Connor shrank back again.

“Do I have to see him?”

“Yes you do.”

“What if I fall deathly ill and expire without warning?”

“Then you’ll do it in my arms as I drag you up there anyways.”

“Okay.” Connor stopped being a child and willingly followed Nathaniel away through the Keep.

They walked for a few minutes until they reached a set of double-doors near the top of the Vigil. Connor had seen them before: the handles were two bronze griffons with talons raised, the great Bear of Amaranthine carved into the doors themselves. They were already open and Nathaniel led Connor inside without a word.

It was an antechamber, semi-private with tall iron-edged windows letting the summer sun and air inside. A large fire was burning in the hearth for extra light, a blue pennant from the old Ferelden Circle of Magi hanging over the mantle. There was a dinner table with four chairs across the room with a china-cabinet, fine rugs spread over the stone floor, and two large wooden doors that led off through the well-lit apartments.

Reclined on a long padded couch by the fire’s light was Lady Morrigan, a book in her lap and her head resting on her curled hand. On the rug spread before the fire was an old, battle-scarred Mabari war dog, its breaths even but loud as it snored away the afternoon. Nathaniel stopped when he saw her but Lady Morrigan moved only her eyes to regard both of them, then inclined her head to one of the doors.

“You have no business with me, he awaits inside.” She told them and then went back to her reading.

Nathaniel knocked at the door Morrigan indicated and opened it when they heard a muffled acknowledgement. He let Connor go in ahead of him and then the other Warden rudely shut Connor in all alone.

“Warden Guerrin.” All alone except for the Commander, but that was what made this whole thing so frightening to begin with. “Please, come have a seat.”

Connor felt like he’d just been brought to the First Enchanter’s office for some apprentice mishap. It looked a lot like what he remembered from Enchanter Irving’s office too. The back wall and one side were lined were bookshelves, light spilling from windows on the opposite wall and illuminating the stacks of thick books, piled scrolls, and meticulously dusted memorabilia. Now Connor remembered Hawke’s long-gone comment about pinching a staff from Surana because the Commander had at least three in this room alone: one with a Dawnstone head by the window, another with a dark blue head that must have been Paragon’s Lustre mounted on the wall, and the third with what looked remarkably like Keeper Lanaya’s carved dog figures leaning against a shelf. There was also a final one with a quiet bloodstone head leaning against the back of his tall chair, its straight black body the same one he’d had with him in the Wending Wood.

Surana’s desk was wide and long, but seemed oddly sized to Connor until he realized it was just short. A large desk would just make the Commander look small and childlike, like his feet were supposed to be hanging off his chair, and that would get in the way of taking him seriously during a meeting or a scolding. His desk was filled with papers and scrolls but except for the few documents in front of him they were well organized and set in neat piles. The Commander himself was spinning the cap back on to an ornate writing pen as Connor stared around the room, the elf’s armour replaced with a fine silver and gold robe stitched with subtle magic. Connor finally remembered himself enough to step forward to take the offered seat.

“Nathaniel said- um, you wanted to see me, Commander.”

“After this morning? Of course I do. Have a seat, Warden, I’m not going to turn you into a toad.”

“Thank you, sir.” F- For the seat, not the- not the not using a spell that didn’t exist on Connor. He took the chair Surana indicated across the desk from him and sat down, off balance and thoroughly embarrassed.

“I think I’m the one who should be thanking you, actually.” The Commander told him as he stacked and cleared away the reports on his desk. Connor’s lungs seized up too tightly for him to say anything. “I think you handled things much better than I was about to.”

“He… my uncle insulted you to your face, sir.” Connor admitted and felt the embarrassment come and start gnawing at him again. “I know it wasn’t my place to interrupt but I- I was just too shocked for anything else. I’m sorry, Commander, I didn’t mean to embarrass you or the Vigil by losing my temper.”

“I’m not the one who was chased out of Vigil’s Keep with cracked teeth and an angry mob behind me.” Surana swept the issue aside with one scarred hand. His fingers and palms from both hands had blistered and peeled from years of very powerful, sometimes reckless magic use. Connor’s scarred face wasn’t exactly the same, but the stiff, raised crimson ridges around one of the Commander’s fingers was from the same explosion that had caught Connor’s eyes. “I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I was embarrassed by loyalty either. Thank you, Connor. I know what this morning’s incident may have cost you and I intend to make it up to you.”

“Oh that- that’s not necessary, sir!” Connor panicked, he didn’t know why exactly, but he panicked anyways. “I think I’d rather everyone just forget about it all together.”

“Truly? And here I had it all set up in my head, _‘Connor Guerrin, Champion of Vigil’s Keep._ ’” Connor _wheezed_ but couldn’t manage to get a word out. Surana was smiling and seemed very relaxed and nonchalant as he leaned back comfortably behind his desk, scarred hands hanging over the carved arms of his chair. “Hmm, you don’t seem very enthused. I’ve also never named a Champion before, maybe I misunderstood the term? A title bestowed by an Arl or Teyrn for great service to their house. Doesn’t defending my honour in front of my entire Keep from another Arling count?”

“Do I get a choice?” Connor finally dragged the words out.

“Yes, you do.”

“Then _please, please no, your grace._ ”

“Morrigan warned me you’d say no.” He sighed gently and then sat up, stretching out his shoulders as he spoke. “A pity, I’d considered what kind of face your uncle would make when he heard the news. I wonder how much more of this he’ll be able to take before he strips me of Redcliffe’s Championship?”

“He can’t-” Connor gasped. “There’s a massive statue dedicated to you in Redcliffe Village, the people love you.”

“They love their Arl too,” Surana cautioned, placing his elbows on the chair and steepling his fingers. “It depends on whether or not he’s ready to take this petty dislike and paranoia of his out from behind closed doors. We had words in Denerim and he could speak more openly here away from court, so we’ll see what comes out of today’s events. At least now I have unequivocal proof that you haven’t been kept prisoner in Vigil’s Keep just to rattle your family’s chains. Thank you again for your loyalty, Connor.”

“Why would House Guerrin even think that way to begin with?” Connor made himself ask, and Surana’s smile was probably the most open expression he’d ever seen the Commander make.

“Your family is very powerful and very well-respected, Connor.” He said, and it was the equivalent of telling someone ‘ _this will make you feel better’_ before giving them a mouthful of deathroot and blood lotus. “Even if I don’t find myself agreeing with your uncle and father very often, I still have to respect them. House Guerrin takes great pride in placing Alistair Theirin on the Fereldan throne, but I don’t think they’ve ever quite gotten over my part in placing Anora Mac Tir beside him. Kingmakers don’t like Heroes they can’t control.”

“So… this isn’t really about me?”

“You’re another link in a very long chain.” Connor’s gut clenched.

“Is that chain why you recruited me?”

“No.” Surana blinked like he’d heard something else, thinking for a moment. “Yes? I think initially, no. I was surprised to see you alive and working at Skyhold, and your situation fed in to my irritation with the College of Enchanters. Seeing you Harrowed was a way of getting under their skin and enacting a bit of change, while also helping you after the bravery you showed during that Darkspawn attack in the mountains. Recruiting you into the Grey Wardens had more to do with your family. But actually giving you the Joining was something else again.”

“You have so many mages around Vigil’s Keep that you recruited but didn’t Join- what made me different?” Maker’s Breath this was not Connor’s privilege to ask! But the Commander was the one to say it was _something_ else so Connor pressed his luck.

“Loyalty.” Surana’s answer was quick and easy. “Not so much yours to me, but between my Wardens and I. I reward loyalty, Connor. It’s hard to find, easy to lose, and even the strongest forms get brittle over time. I test loyalty hard and often, sometimes too hard and _too_ often, but it means I have to give back when taking too much. You took your training without complaint, built friendships and good rapport within the company, you pick up things fast and easily, and under monumental stress you didn’t break. If I’d told my men that after being carried on your back through the Deep Roads, and after you doubled back into a broodmother’s nest for Nathaniel, and after you’d killed a darkspawn general with a broken _neck_ , that I thought you still weren’t good enough for the Grey Wardens, where would that leave them?” It was a rhetorical question but Connor tried to answer anyways.

“Thinking that you’re impossible to please.”

“Exactly.” Wha-? He was right! “Watching someone you like do everything right and still fail is damaging to morale. It’s one thing when the Joining kills a worthy recruit, it’s another if it feels like no one is worthy.”

“That doesn’t explain the Silver Order though…” Connor’s voice was more withdrawn, hoping he wouldn’t offend, and Surana’s face twisted slowly like he felt a bad cramp “There are so many of them.”

“How much do you know about Velanna, Connor?” Connor told him. About her desertion, about how she’d left Oghren and Nathaniel in the Deep Roads. “How much do you know about Kirkwall?” Uh-

“The city or the rebellion?” Connor didn’t know where this change in topic was leading.

“The Rebellion.” Surana clarified, the words heavy between them.

“I… as much as any Circle Mage, I think. The Templars in the city were corrupt and now we all know what the Red Lyrium their Knight Commander was using does to people. But Kirkwall is a city that breeds blood-magic, and when one of them blew up the Chantry-” Surana closed his eyes.

“The Apostate who killed Grand Cleric Elthina was not a blood mage.” He corrected firmly, and with difficulty. “He was a Grey Warden.”

Connor went very quiet. He felt the sudden pressure on him that this was something he’d known from the stories, yes, but there was more.

“Anders was _my_ Grey Warden.” Surana put a heavy, dower weight on the confession. “He was the only other Circle Mage I ever extended the Joining to, and I did it to keep him away from the Templars who were chasing him. I thought the Templars were wrong but only following chantry law. I was certain that if Anders was given enough freedom and Knight Commander Gregoir given an excuse not to keep sending Templars to drag him back to Kinloch Hold, then everyone would get what they wanted. Gregoir would have one less apostate, Vigil’s Keep would have another mage and healer, and Anders would have the freedom to build a life and pursue a career with the Wardens while his free time became wholly his own.”

“But… how did he end up in Kirkwall?”

“He didn’t trust me.” Surana looked tired again. He’d seemed better now than on the road that morning, but now the dark circles were back under his fair eyes. He’d bathed but he looked old now, washed out over the collar of his gold and silver Archmage robe. “He knew Templars and Mages from Kinloch Hold were coming to the Vigil and I told him I would keep the politics away from him, that he would be safe with the Grey Wardens. He accused me of selling him out and I lost my temper: told him he could spend the Templars’ visit inside a cell if he felt so strongly about it and that was the last straw for him. He’d only been in the Order for just over half a year. He deserted that night taking nothing but his staff, his gear, and a few personal effects. I tracked him as far as Kirkwall but never knew if he stayed in the city or fled to keep ahead of the Order. Nathaniel encountered him a few years later but by the time he reported back to the Vigil Kirkwall was in flames and I had apostates and Templars tearing my Arling to pieces. The stories say Hawke’s sister put a knife in him, Hawke himself says he doesn’t remember what happened in the chaos.”

They sat in silence for a long time after that and Connor was thankful for it. He had a lot of information to sift through, so many important details making sense and pieces of the truth collecting in his hands. The others had told him Velanna’s betrayal was _half_ the reason there were no other mages in the Ferelden Grey Wardens, but all of this made it sound like she had nothing to do with it: it was all Anders.

“I’m the first Circle Mage since the Grey Warden who set off the war.” He finally said after several long, slow minutes. “And I’m the first mage at all since Velanna hobbled her company and ran off.”

“We mages bear a heavy burden, Warden Guerrin.” Surana said in a low, heavy voice. That he hated this topic was obvious, but Connor was sure they both knew he needed to hear this. “And I’m simply not willing to trust magi I barely know with the honour of living the only life I have. I know what we’re capable of. I won’t endorse wild passions.”

“Andraste guide me- I can’t see myself running away into the Deep Roads or- or following _his_ example- but-”

“If you do, I’ll kill you.” Surana interrupted, hard and quick. “I will, Connor. Trust in that if nothing else.”

“I will- I do.” Oh Maker, the mage who’d ruined _everything…_ He’d come from Vigil’s Keep. Commander Surana had sheltered the Apostate who killed the _Grand Cleric_... And Enchanter Elorah. And Jylan. And the apprentices on the shore of Lake Calenhad. And all those people across the Hinterlands, at Redcliffe. He’d started a _war_ no one had been able to win but in which everyone had _suffered_. Maker Keep Him, if Connor ever found himself barreling down a path half as disastrous he’d throw himself on Surana’s sword.

“Maker.” The Commander of the Grey muttered, rubbing one scarred hand over his face and against his closed eyes. “I would dismiss you on that black note but there’s still one more thing we need to discuss.”

“It can’t be as bad as what you just told me.” Connor said, feeling hollowed out and chill inside, like his magic had forgotten it was supposed to be fire caged in his chest.

“It might be.” The elf said, blowing out a hard sigh and adjusting in his seat again. He dropped his hand and looked at Connor, seated squarely in his chair with a firm look. “If we’d had our talk in the Wending Wood then this morning might have gone much differently, Connor.”

“We’re back at my family?” He asked, disappointed. Surana gave a short nod.

“What do you know about Rowan Guerrin?” The Commander asked.

“Uuh…” Connor didn’t get it, he shifted around in his chair, folding his hands in front of him. “She was my grandparents’ eldest child and fought in the Rebellion. She married King Marric Theirin to become Queen of Ferelden and was mother to my cousin King Cailan. I never met her though, Cailan was nearly grown by the time I was born and had very few memories of her himself.” He didn’t get it. Why was he hearing about his aunt again? Why did Surana have that distant, reserved look to him again? His fingertips were pressed together like before and he was considering Connor’s words carefully- _why_?

“Andraste guide Her Majesty’s spirit to the Maker…” The Warden Commander politely commented, rubbing his red palms together briskly before just getting on with it. “But that is not who I meant. Warden Guerrin, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this but you have a sister: Lady Rowan Guerrin of Redcliffe.”

Connor’s… whole world just… stopped.

It paused.

It slid ever so far off its axis.

“How?”

“She was born in nine-thirty-three Dragon, the year after you were sent to the Ferelden Circle.”

“But why-?” Why had he never heard of her when-? But his last letters had stopped arriving after his first year at Kinloch Hold. He’d blamed the Templars, accepted their wall between him and his family- but the _first_ _year_ had involved so many- No… “ _Why?_ ”

“I thought you knew, you were in Redcliffe.” Connor shook his head, no, he hadn’t known, no. He’d met his uncle Teagan only once, just one time in the tent-city of apostates and abandoned circle magi. “But on the road from West Hill you didn’t ask for news of her, so I left it alone. Before you went to Orlais I considered it- but you’d already taken your Joining and it needed to be said in private, something we didn’t have in Highever. Giving you this kind of news and then putting you on a ship for four weeks felt irresponsible, and it gave me time to go and try to meet with House Guerrin in Denerim.”

“What did my parents say?” Connor’s throat hurt, it felt tight and his skin was hot, fingers twisted in his lap.

“They scoffed and said you knew.” Surana wore a critical frown and Connor took a swift breath just to hold it. His eyes were stinging. “Lady Isolde produced letters.”

“They’re _fake_.” Connor wanted to _scream_ but no, he had tears boiling over in his eyes instead. “Is _this_ what you wanted to tell me with the Dalish?”

“It is, yes.” So he wasn’t telling Connor this because of uncle Teagan’s insults this morning. He wasn’t using this as a reward for Connor’s loyalty.

“It’s what you mentioned in your letter with my orders!” If Connor hadn’t wiggled out of the conversation two days ago he would have known this the whole way back to Vigil’s Keep.

“Yes, Connor.” Connor put the back of his hand tight over his mouth, leaning on that arm and trying to breathe, trying _not_ to scream. “And no, I don’t know why. Before the war your father frequently spoke of having you brought to Denerim as a Court Mage after your Harrowing. I don’t know how to reconcile that with him keeping Rowan a secret from you.”

“How can they do this and then demand me _back!?_ ” Connor shouted and oh, _oh_ , he shouldn’t have- it wasn’t the Commander who’d done this! “Why all that running across the Bannorn? Why lock horns with you like Teagan did this morning!? If they wanted me out of her life then _fine!_ I’ll _accept_ that after what I did to Redcliffe, but they can’t cut me out and then demand I drop my life and go after them! I won’t do it!”

“Easy, Warden.” Surana said calmly, showing his palm and pressing down on the air gently. “Your two week leave begins again tomorrow. I forbade you from going to Denerim in case your family took your presence as an insult from me to them, but you’ve already acted on your own to embarrass the Arl of Redcliffe this morning and that’s on Teagan, not you. You’ve had a taste of Denerim’s politics and how much of it you engage with is up to you. I didn’t want you in that hall when I met with Teagan, but it’s done and, honestly, to my benefit.”

“That’s not what Zevran said.” Connor spat out bitterly, too upset to mind his tone. “He made it sound like you wanted me to either ride home properly or scurry around the back like a mouse.”

“Zevran is a liar who likes to embellish things.” Surana answered in a flat voice.

“Do you lie too, sir?” It was the rudest thing Connor had ever asked someone.

“It’s much easier to omit information than to change it.” The Commander answered bluntly, any offense in the comment sailing smoothly past him. “Zevran embellishes, I prefer to just say less.”

“That’s a very big thing to admit to your junior warden, Commander.” He’d let tears go, and somehow this part of the conversation was helping him through them.

“My junior warden just fought and disgraced an Arl for me.” Surana was leaning forward, elbows on his desk and fingers woven together. “You get one more question and one request before I dismiss you, Warden.”

“Request for what?”

“That was your question.” Was the breezy reply. “And a request in lieu of the title most Arls would give someone who publicly championed their name. A higher stipend, more leave, new gear, a bigger room… Choose carefully.”

Connor sat there, miserable, angry, _hurt in places he hadn’t known could ache_ , and he thought. It was hard to focus because it just came at him: _they lied to me, they lied to me, they lied to me_. But his Commander had asked him to make a request and Connor wasn’t going to waste it on a rhetorical _tell me why they lied to me_. Surana didn’t know, he couldn’t parse up something he didn’t have.

“Then- for the sake of the Vigil,” Connor finally grunted, dragging the heel of his palm over one cheek and then the other to rub off his shameful tears. “And her sanity, your grace, I request that the Warden Commander allow-” A number, pick a number, “Five- _six_ , including Hunter An’eth of the Dalish, members of the Silver Order to attempt the Joining. Any five plus An’eth: _before summer’s end_.”

Surana was still sitting there but it looked like Connor had picked up a stick and smacked it right on his head. His calm mask cracked, wide blue elven eyes open much further than they usually did, his controlled smile slack on one side. He was staring straight through the middle of Connor’s forehead. He was stuck there for at least ten seconds. He rubbed his scarred thumbs together over his laced fingers, thinking.

Thinking of how to tell Connor off for overstepping himself. Thinking of a way out of it. Thinking of a loop hole big enough to slide the whole agreement through. Thinking of a way to actually turn an uppity mage into a frog.

“Six initiates.” He said, voice blank. “By summer’s end.” Then his eyes focused on Connor. “You will officiate.” Like Hawke had officiated for him.

“As you command, your grace.”

“Irving was wrong.” Surana blurted out, unsticking himself from his shock and slowly moving back into his chair, hands over the arms again and fingers tracing the carved ends. “You’ll do just fine around nobles.”

“I- _sir?_ ”

“Dismissed, Warden Guerrin.” He’d already spent his last question. “Do bathe and eat something before Mistress Felsi finds and blames me for your condition.”

“Uh- yes, Commander. Thank you?”

“Good day, Warden.”

Connor very quietly left.


	10. A Great Big Hole Called

‘ _They lied to me.’_ Connor was miserable. ‘ _They lied to me.’_

He left Commander Surana’s apartments and went to take the hot bath ordered of him, hands shaking and ears ringing as he splashed himself with hot water and scrubbed the grime from his hair, the tears from his eyes. He’d learned a lot, discussed a lot, but there was no way for him to shake the most horrifying part of it.

His family had _lied_ to him.

He was supposed to eat and yes, Connor was hungry, but looking down from the balcony by his room told him the meal service had cleaned up already and he didn’t want to disturb the kitchens. He ignored something Hawke said and slipped through his own door, shutting it behind him.

 _“Hey!_ ” Connor didn’t open the door. Hawke didn’t knock.

He crawled into bed and pulled his pillow down over his shoulder, hugging it, eyes closed.

‘ _They lied to me.’_

He didn’t move until the day’s heat began to taper off, his stomach twisting painfully in his gut and telling him he needed to eat now. He wasn’t one of those melancholy heroes from Hawke’s books who could go days without sustenance. A meal here or there, sometimes, but he needed to eat.

Connor opened the door and jumped when he saw Hawke standing there, arms folded, scowling.

“About damn time.” The other Warden grunted, but then he hesitated, focusing on Connor’s bloodshot eyes before backing down. “You don’t want to go to dinner, do you?”

“I just want to eat.” Connor admitted. “And then go back to sleep.”

“Maker, what did he say to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He wasn’t lying, he was having a hard enough time telling _himself_. “It’s nothing he did, Hawke. I’m just tired.”

“Well just- stay here then. Don’t close the damn door this time.”

“Thank you, Hawke.” Connor didn’t close his door. Something nagged at him that Hawke would probably just come back with the smallest, coldest, hardest lump of bread he could find and tell Connor to get over himself if he wanted a better dinner, but about ten minutes later that wasn’t what happened.

He was so tempted to just huddle back up in bed for the minutes he waited, but resisted. He was sitting on his chair next to his crowded desk when Hawke came back triumphantly bearing a stolen plank of wood with several large dishes sitting on top of it.

“Did… you just take those off the table?”

“You can thank me later.”

Hawke had honestly just taken three serving dishes from a table downstairs. There was a platter of thickly sliced roast, a pot of roasted roots and peas, a gravy boat, and a basket of soft bread. He’d forgotten plates, spoons, or knives, and there was no space on Connor’s desk so the other Warden just set the whole meal down on the floor. Connor regained enough sense to light the lamps in his room as the sun began to sink, and Hawke convinced him to open the door to the balcony because it was stuffy.

“It’s nice outside, actually.”

“Of course you say that after I sit down. _Fine._ ”

The twilight sky was going purple and orange, the balcony stones were dusty and in bad need of a good sweeping. Connor’s planter that he’d mixed elfroot and water into had exploded in the two weeks he’d been gone: wild green vines spitting out of the old dirt and bearing tightly furled leaves that would be ready to harvest any day now.

It was too much food for two people but there were no plates or manners to abide by. Connor hadn’t eaten since that cold breakfast at dawn on the road and needed food. Food filled part of the empty, hollow space the talk with Surana had opened up in him, coaxing the fire in his soul to try and wake back up. Connor wasn’t used to feeling cold: he actually wanted to _feel_ his magic rumble and burn against him.

They dipped their bread in the gravy boat and pulled apart the meat with their fingers, the oil on the roasted beans and wedges of turnip and parsnips made them slippery, so Connor lost a few of them to the gravy. He was poor dinner company but Hawke talked enough for both of them: he complained about Connnor’s elfroot and how much of it was growing. He told Connor it was dumb for the distillery and its tubes to take up his entire desk because where was he ever going to get any work done? And the worst offense of all:

“You better not have spilled any of that flower oil on my book, Guerrin.”

“I did.” Connor admitted, the first thing he’d said in several minutes. He pulled another chunk of roast apart with his teeth and chewed thoughtfully, mouth thick with the juice of rendered fat until he swallowed. “I spilled a drop of lavender right down the spine just to bug you.”

“You _villain_.” Hawke seethed.

“What _have_ you got against flowers?”

“Nothing, it’s just something I can bug you about.”

“Well you’ll be happy to know the Dalish gave me a few recipes to work on, so my room will smell like elfroot for the next week instead.”

“Great, our mage is going to have green hands again.” Hawke sighed. “Just make sure you don’t touch your face or you’ll _really_ make the scars stand out. I’ll walk in and you’ll just be bright grass green from your roots to your ankles.”

“Maker, I’m not going to bathe in it.”

“Tell that to the tunic you got handprints all over- Mistress Felsi threw a _fit_.”

“I don’t see why. I’m the one who has to wear it, not her.”

“You don’t know Mistress Felsi.”

Connor laughed softly through his nose and used the last of his bread to scoop a bit more of the oil from the nearly-empty pot of veggies. The heavy aroma of rosemary and garlic were pleasant when he chewed through it. Hawke had a satisfied look spread across his wide face and looked like he was going to say something, then rolled his shoulders with a grunt.

“Nah, I won’t ask.”

“Mm? Ask what?”

“You already said you don’t want to talk about it.” Oh. _That_. Connor felt his mood fall and hadn’t realized how much the company and conversation had helped.

“I’ll be okay.” He said, and somehow he believed it. He wasn’t sure why, but sitting outside under a summer evening sky gave him the confidence for it anyhow. “It’s just Denerim.”

“Well we all know you can handle that just fine.” Hawke told him cheerfully. “Before you let it get to you, Guerrin, just remember that when everyone starts cheering for you tomorrow it’ll be that ‘ _laughing with you, not at you’_ thing. Think you can handle that?” Connor felt his face pull in a nervous frown.

“Surana tried to make me a Champion.”

“Tried?” Hawke repeated, “What, you said _no_?”

“Of course I said no.”

“Okay no, just for that, the next time an Arl or a Teyrn insults our Commander you let _me_ do the jaw-breaking.” Hawke told him with a solid huff. “I can’t believe you wasted the opportunity for the _Champion of Redcliffe_ to name a member of House Guerrin the _Champion of Vigil’s Keep_ for decking the _Arl of Fucking Redcliffe_. Where is your sense of irony?”

Connor opened his mouth to respond with a dig or a joke, but felt something freeze over inside of him and his words came out sharp.

“I’m not a member of House Guerrin.” Was what he said, and it slapped Hawke’s smile off his face. Connor felt the mood shift and dropped his eyes, curling his lips into his mouth. Hawke was just being a _friend_ to him the way Surana had just been trying to show him the sorts of deceit at work in the games Denerim played, but here Connor was acting like an _ass_ again. “I’m sorry.”

“Believe it or not, I can _actually_ close my mouth for two minutes and listen if you want to say something.” Hawke told him in a lofty voice. “Or I can go back to my room and cry about how mean you sounded.”

“You do bruise easily.” Connor mumbled, a better apology than the first because Hawke gave a quick laugh and leaned over the remaining food to clap him on the shoulder.

“Give it a go then. I’ll shut up for it.” Hawke crossed his legs and rested his elbows on his knees, hunched over and ready to listen as the sky began to darken over the Vigil.

Connor tried to figure out how. He could be blunt about the facts or he could try and tackle the great empty hole in his chest. He wanted his magic to cling to his bones and give him back the anxious scratching he was used to, worried for a moment that maybe the news had made him lose his powers- but no, if he focused a little bit while sitting here he could feel it waiting. It didn’t feel like the fire he was used to, the almost-pain of anxiety and fear made of lightning and caution. The revelation had hurt him and Connor didn’t even know how to make sense of the wound.

“You have siblings, don’t you, Hawke?” He asked at last.

“An older, famous, rich, heroic sister, yes.” Hawke rambled off-the-cuff. “And a twin.”

“Were you close?”

“With _Marian_? Maker no.” Hawke pulled a face. “There was never any time for mundane little Carver with Marian throwing a tantrum with her magic or using me for her staff practice. I don’t think we started seeing eye-to-eye with each other until Kirkwall, and we were never open about it until after the rebellion started.”

Connor remembered the story Surana had told him. The Apostate, Run-away Warden Anders. Stories said the Champion had killed him after the chantry exploded. Hawke had been there but said he didn’t know the truth. Connor didn’t ask.

“But _Bethany?_ ” Hawke’s eyes softened, his voice calmed, and Connor stopped fretting for a moment to listen to him. “Now that… that was different. We were _twins_. We were always around each other. From birth until the day her magic began to manifest we were always with each other. Maker, it’s been _so long_ but I still look for her.”

‘ _My parents lied and kept my little sister secret from me. Somewhere in Redcliffe there’s a ten year old girl I’ve never met._ ’ Connor could have said it. He could have made the conversation about him again. He could have.

“What was she like?” Was what he asked, hooking one arm around his knee. “Bethany?”

“She was sunshine.” Just the way he said it made Connor feel better for not turning the conversation around. “She used to pick daisies and make me put them in her hair. She could smile and mother would forgive her for anything, even if I was the one who’d made the trouble. The one time Marian got mad at her Bethany went off like a little firestorm and we both jumped on her, I can’t even remember what it was about, I just remember hiding in our father’s garden until dark when he came out looking for us.”

Carver talked and Connor listened. He asked questions, prodded the memories for details that made them into stories. The air grew cool and the food was cold, the light from Connor’s lamps inside became the brightest thing around them, the deep indigo of the sky pricked with starlight. But Carver talked about Bethany, his mage and twin-sister Bethany, the girl who’d thrown herself between her family and an ogre when they fled the Blight. Bethany who’d had patience that mirrored and masked her siblings’ tempers. Bethany who had been so scared of her magic and had clung to her twin’s hand in a way Carver still remembered and tried to mimic with his own strong hands just to prove he was explaining it right. Bethany who’d left a hole in her twin brother when he’d lost her and Carver had made himself build over and across the gap with anything that almost fit, just to make sure Connor had to have known him half a year and then fallen down hard before Carver would let himself talk about her.

Carver talked about Bethany and Connor held the lonely feelings tenderly when they were passed to him, because that was how he found the word for the void. Loneliness. His family had lied to him and Connor had felt _lonely_ in the quiet that followed their silence. It wasn’t the same loneliness as Carver’s, but it was the right name for the right kind of emptiness.

Lonely in the tower where his cohort Amara had died in the Harrowing Chamber, and his overseer Irving had passed Connor over, and his mentor Leorah had been run through by Templars, and his friend Jylan had been made Tranquil. Lonely in Redcliffe where the sins of the stained earth had haunted and frightened him away from contact with most anyone else. Lonely in Haven where his skills had been too weak and his magic too self-defeating to make a difference. Lonely at Skyhold where he’d been shackled by the reality of never being anything but an apprentice and a novice for what could have been the rest of his life.

Connor had been _lonely._

“Maker! This is where you two have been!” Genevieve’s voice behind Connor made him jump and give a shriek on the ground. When he looked around he saw the Warden’s twisted hair shaking as she shook a finger over the low stone wall separating her part of the battlements-turned-balcony from Connor and Hawke’s.

“Congratulations, you’ve found two people who weren’t hiding.” Hawke quipped, looking up at the dark sky now and noting the moon. “When did it get this dark?”

“Sorry, Evie.” Connor’s voice was weak.

 “It has been hours!” She scolded, looking over Connor’s head at Hawke, who seemed to be at fault for this. “We went past your doors and could not see either of you. We thought you’d left!”

“And gone where, back to the Dalish?” Hawke asked. “I’m sure the Commander would have _loved_ that.”

“That’s none of my business.” Genevieve said shortly. “But the Keep is still falling all over itself about that spectacle this morning, and no one will tell me what that even was!”

“A challenge.” They answered together. Genevieve scoffed and threw both hands in the air.

“ _Congratulations, you two small minds!”_ She huffed in Orlesian, causing Connor to smile by accident. “It is as if no one here realizes I am not Fereldan! I know what an Arl is, they are like the Dukes and Duchesses of Orlais- but you cannot simply punch a Duke!”

“Well he’s not a Duke,” Connor corrected. “He’s an Arl.”

“And this is Ferelden, not Orlais.” Hawke followed up. “Connor’s a Freeman. If an Arl can’t answer his Freemen then he’ll lose his Banns’ support. It’s not like Guerrin came up behind him and slugged him in the neck either: you encouraged him!”

“ _Maker Watch Over Me_ I knew I should have kept my mouth shut! You could have been arrested and flogged!”

“No!” Connor shouted,

“This is _Ferelden_ , it doesn’t _work_ like that!”

“It doesn’t work _at all_.”

“Maker, Evie, just get over here and sit down.” Hawke finally invited, gesturing to the rest of the open balcony. “I’ll explain it _again_ for you. Connor was born noble: he knew what he was doing.”

“I don’t know that much, I was _eleven_ when I went to the Circle.” Connor reminded him, not that Hawke seemed to care.

“ _Ugh._ Alright.” She walked away out of sight, but a few seconds later her footsteps clapped the balcony stones again and she reappeared at the wall, placing a hand on top of it and hoisting herself up. She swung her long legs over the wall and stepped down lightly, wearing a long white linen shirt over dark trousers and soft shoes. She had a blanket over one arm and a wine bottle by the neck. “I hope you intend to return these dishes to Mistress Felsi.”

“Nah, I figured Connor can use them for more of his plants.”

“No thank you, I like being alive.” Connor defended, offering his work knife to Evie when she sat on her blanket and took note of the cork sealing the wine shut. She pushed the tip of the knife as far as it would go, twisted a few times, and wrenched the top off with a satisfying pop. “Is that from Orlais?”

“ _Emprise Du Lion’s_ finest.” She agreed, swirling the bottle like it would be able to breathe properly just through the neck. “I paid half a crown for this.”

“To what do we owe the honour?” Hawke asked curiously, both of them watching as Evie put the bottle to her nose and took a deep, satisfied sniff of the vintage. Her twisted hair was pulled into long knotted bundles, each one moving slightly with her head and catching the lamplight from Connor’s room with a golden glow that warmed her dark skin in the night. She took a quick, delighted mouthful of the wine and held it in her mouth for a moment, sighing gently at the taste before handing the bottle to Connor.

It was a white wine, dusty and sweet at the back of his throat. Maybe not worth fifty silvers to _him_ , but Evie was in bliss and Hawke was quick to take the bottle and try it.

“A completed mission, a grand spectacle of Ferelden foolishness, a beautiful summer night…” She sighed whimsically, eyes closed and shaking her hair in the warm air. “And I’m the one who paid for it so I get to decide when we drink it. Do not hog the bottle, Hawke!”

“You’re a Warden, you can’t get drunk off a single bottle of wine.” Hawke complained, surrendering the bottle with a sour look as he licked at his mouth.

“It’s not about getting drunk, you _animal_.” Evie complained, drinking before letting Connor have it again. “You, you’re half Orlesian, that’s good enough. You understand wine.”

“Again, I was eleven the last time I saw my mother.” Connor quickly snatched the bottle away when she tried to take it back from him. “Easy there-! I still want my drink.”

“Neither of you appreciate it!”

“I appreciate your _company_ ,” Hawke drawled.

“Shut up.”

“I made you rose water.” Connor reminded her.

“Hmph. _That_ is a fair point.” Evie allowed, letting him drink and nodding when he indicated Hawke again in the rotation.

“Tell you what, Captain,” The smartass gloated in the dark. “Guerrin and I’ll get you fifty silvers worth of Fereldan wine and between the three of us we’ll drink it all.”

“Maker, Hawke, that’s nearly five hundred bottles.” Connor said and Hawke almost shot wine out his nose, covering his mouth with a laugh.

“ _Heathen!_ ” Evie shouted, “You’re wasting it!”

“Blame him! He made me do it!”

“He speaks the truth and you spill good wine!” She ranted, a smile tugging at her lips as she took the bottle back. “How did you ever survive the journey across Orlais?”

“I don’t _fucking know…”_  Hawke was still laughing, face in his hands.

The bottle went around and around and around between them until it was empty, laughter and jokes twisting through the night. The only thing they were missing was a campfire which Connor, eased by the wine and company, allowed himself to cast atop the picked-clean dishes from dinner. The magic spun together smooth and warm over his fingers, twisting into plumes of gentle blue magefire that glittered and hung around them. He twisted it to purple and then a deep, deep red, watching how the colours reflected off Hawke’s black hair, how the shades played with the silver glow of Evie’s smile.

They went to bed tired and in high spirits, Connor too lazy to close either of his doors or change out of his shirt and trousers before crawling into bed. After two weeks it was glorious to sleep on something soft and cozy, and he was barely awake for when the heat of the summer made him get up in the dark just long enough to pull off his shirt and pants before rolling himself back up under a thin linen blanket and his soft pillow.

Connor slept deeply and oh-so-happily through the night until the breakfast bell startled him awake. He rolled into a pair of trousers that seemed reasonably clean and the stained white tunic everyone thought was so funny with its green smears, and went down to eat without bothering to wash his face first. He was hungry and wanted to sleep more.

There was a fast, sudden cheer that went up when he showed his sleepy unshaved face in the dinner hall. It ended quickly enough when Connor just stood there petrified for a few seconds, and from several of the hall’s long tables came the roundelay of the stupid fox and the strong mabari. Nathaniel looked fresh and clean and in good spirits as he flagged Connor down for a meal.

“You look better for a good night’s rest.” The hunter said cheerfully, peeling boiled eggs and spreading sweet jam over several slices of bread.

“Not as good as you,” Connor marvelled. “Are you _smiling?_ ”

“My wife- and I have to get used to saying that- is being assigned as archivist and record keeper for the Vigil.” Nathaniel went on immediately, and it was obvious he’d been waiting for someone to sit down and let him talk at them. “She’s met my sister and her husband, Thomas has _absolutely_ no memory of who she is but he and his sister just assume it’s another adult who’ll hand them sweets if they’re good.”

“So… you’re already settled in?” Connor asked, feeding in to the senior Warden’s delight as Nathaniel stuffed a mouthful of food into his mouth, shaking his head and making a useless gesture with one hand.

He explained between mouthfuls of food that the Vigil was _very_ full. Velanna was not a Warden so couldn’t reclaim the old room next to Howe’s in their hallway that had never been reassigned. She could stay temporarily with Nathaniel in _his_ room but even Connor understood that things would get very cramped very quickly for two people. The couple were living with Nathaniel’s sister and her family for the time being, but Garevel was already working on finding a small place to tuck Warden Howe’s new wife while simultaneously drumming up work for her in the Keep’s scanty library.

“While she’s busy I’ve promised my niece and nephew a day out fishing. What’re you plans, oh _almost-Champion_?”

“Please don’t call me that.” But that was a simple answer: Connor had recipes from the Dalish he wanted to try, not to mention a planted box full of elfroot on his and Hawke’s balcony to try and tame.

“That green jelly stuff?” Yes, that was the one. “I’m all for having more of that around, but watch out. I think the Commander tried to make it once and Oghren went ahead and ate it on his bread.”

“But it-?” It was lemon rind and dawn lotus!

“Don’t ask me why.” Nathaniel nodded down the row of chairs. “Incoming.”

“What?”

Connor looked and then Connor tried to dive under the table- Nathaniel caught his arm and told him to sit easy instead. That was very hard to do with two stubborn and surly looking dwarves marching down between the tables, eyes fixed on him.

“Oghren.” Connor’s voice was weak, “Mistress Felsi.”

“Where the sodding hell are my wife’s dishes, boy?” Oh Maker, he didn’t-

“Hawke took them and left them outside.” Connor winced at the sound of his own answer. Thus was written the end of Carver Hawke. “My door’s open. They’re still on our balcony.”

“Then I’ll go make sure bird-brain wakes up with them on his sodding _face_.” Oghren growled and then shoved past Connor’s chair, storming off and leaving Mistress Felsi behind.

Mistress Felsi’s job was to keep the Vigil fed. She was a dwarf like her husband with sandy blond hair braided back behind her head, a thick snub nose and- _maybe_ if she didn’t always look so cross her pale eyes might have been kinder. As it was, she had a lot of people to keep track of and even more of them to feed. She wasn’t just some cook, she was the person Garevel kept in control of the Vigil’s stores, orders, and surpluses. It was a big job and she didn’t have any time for major distractions.

“Alright, Warden, I’ll keep this brief.” Mistress Felsi told him in a sharp, too-the-point manner. “Oghren explained enough about you being too new to know better, but here at Vigil’s Keep we _don’t_ let our Wardens wander around looking like Dusters. _Wear this_ ,” she held out something for Connor to take from her, “-when you do your work, or you’ll find your at-leave time spent up to your elbows in the laundry’s hot water, understood?”

“I- Thank you, Mistress Felsi.” It was an apron. Not a baker or a cook’s apron though, this was made of thin, soft hide lightly tanned just to keep it together. It was heavy all folded up in his hands but long and with tight double-stitched hems and seams where the belt and loop for the head went. Very quickly in deft white stitches was a rearing griffon at the top left corner over the heart. Just enough to show it didn’t belong to a servant around the keep, but one of the Wardens. “ _Wow…_ I… I really don’t-”

“And put that damned tunic out on the floor when you go back to your room, I want it cut up for rags.”

“What! That’s not necessary, I don’t think.” It was hardly worn and had no holes or missing stitches yet, just a few-

“ _Cut it up or I’ll cut **you** up, Warden.”_ Maker she sounded like she meant that.

Rightly fearing what may happen if he didn’t listen, Connor did surrender his tunic when he returned upstairs after breakfast, leaving it folded by his open door. He met briefly with the elven servant who cleaned their rooms and she told him brightly that she thought the elfroot was growing nicely outside, and Connor thanked her for having watered it while he was gone. She also informed him that she’d swept the outside space just now and had collected the missing dishes.

“I would have made your bed, Warden, but I wasn’t sure what to do about… that.”

“What?”

“ _That_.”

There was a lump on Connor’s bed that had not been there before. It was under the loose covers, and it was wet.

“Maker’s Bre- _Hawke!_ ” There was a great wet lump of- wait, were those lotus leaves? Nevermind, he wasn’t angry. “Thank you- nevermind about the bed, just- _thank you_.”

Connor’s bed had a great wet patch in the middle of it now, but he was too preoccupied with unravelling the bundle of folded scrap hide to be bothered by it. Inside were at least eight slippery wet blood lotuses, plus four black lotus and two white dawn plants. They’d been doused with water and had a smell to them after however many days it had been from Crestwood to the Vigil, but Connor barely had time to put on his gloves and new apron before going to work on them.

He started with the rarest component and worked his way backwards. Connor gently, _gently_ set the distiller down on the floor next to his desk without disturbing the tubes and vials before clearing the desk off and pulling the plants apart. He stripped the leaves off carefully, clipped the longer stems and sliced them finely, treating the stalks the same way and paring down the roots before hanging them to dry, the other pieces soaking in clean water.

“Just so we’re clear,” Hawke’s voice tried to interrupt him as the day marched closer towards noon. “It was Sigrun’s idea to get those things and I had nothing to do with it.”

“I’ll make sure I thank her.” Connor didn’t look up from his work, “These things have roots longer than she’s tall, and I didn’t even tell her they good for anything- I’ll have to think of something nice to give her in return.”

“Just tell her you’ll burn and freeze things on command and she’ll probably call it even.” Hawke answered, still from the doorway. Connor thought of something for the part-time handyman.

“Hawke, if I got rid of this desk do you think I’d be able to fit a longer table against the wall?”

“Uuh…”

“I mean not _get rid of_ as in break it apart or anything, just put it down in the Vigil’s storage.”

“Alright…” Hawke slowly drew the word out, “Have the room for it? Yes, but one thing at a time, maybe?”

“Not right _now,_ I want to finish this first.” Connor assured him. “Maybe in a few days or something.”

“Guerrin, eyes up for a minute.”

“What?”

“Connor!”

“ _What?”_ Connor looked and there was Hawke in his work-clothes, trousers streaked with dust and work gloves protecting his hands and wrists under his shirtsleeves. He was carrying something under his arm but staring at what was hanging in front of his face.

“This-” The other Warden grunted, pointing at the bundle of dried spindleweed dangling from one of Connor’s twine threads. “This is not good. You need to stop this. I was going to mention it last night but you were all sad about something so whatever, but no, this is insane.”

“Oh- um, those are dry now. I can take that down.” He very quickly set down what he was doing, brought his work knife over and cut the twine, holding the bundle and finding Hawke’s scowling face looking through the window of his raised arms.

“Not what you meant?”

“Not what I fucking meant.” Hawke lectured with a scowl. “You cannot hang _spiney, prickly, poisonous things_ from your ceiling, least of all where people _walk_.”

“The rest aren’t poisonous-”

 _“I don’t care!_ ” Hawke pulled around what he was carrying and thumped it between them. “Just use this!”

Connor froze, then he quickly put his knife and the spindleweed down on his desk. He pulled off his lotus-stained gloves and left them, hurrying back to Hawke and taking the item from him.

“This is a drying rack,” he breathed. It was folded up, the wood sanded smooth and still carrying the smell of the light varnish that had been rubbed into the bars and rods. “Did you _make_ this?”

“I did not.” Hawke blustered.

“Sorry, I meant did _Sigrun_ make this?” Connor amended and the other Warden huffed at him.

“I found it. I fixed it. If you don’t want it then I’ll give it to Nathaniel’s sister.”

“I want it.” He answered immediately. “Unless she needs it mo-” Hawke shoved the rack at him and threw his hands at the hanging herbs and roots.

“Just deal with these!” He huffed, and then he left.

And Connor, biting back an excited grin, hurried outside with his new toy.


	11. Corporal of the Grey

It took Connor two more months at Vigil’s Keep to earn his first promotion.

A few days after his return from the Wending Wood he finally met Mistress Valora, the keep’s midwife. She was a thin elven woman with strong hands and a critical eye, but upon realizing Connor was willing to help ease her burden of salves, tonics, potions, and elixirs if only for a bit of her guidance, she seized upon him at once. He was kept busy producing minor salves from his crop of elfroot and spindleweed and when she gave him new recipes, he tinkered with them until he could bring back what she asked for.

His daily at-leave routine was set: up reasonably early with or without breakfast, working in his room until the noon bell when he would bathe and eat. After lunch he would deliver the day’s work to Valora, pick up new herbs from her and any ingredients he needed from the market, and return to the Keep where he could work until the evening bell. His door remained open and his company drifted in and out throughout the day, sometimes Hawke would read or Sigrun come and watch him work. In the evening he made a point of being more social, and then he would retire for the night and do it all again the next day.

Mistress Valora’s granddaughter Vessa was highly knowledgeable of what grew where in the arling and supplied Connor with whatever neither he nor Valora could grow on their own. He collected several pots and jars to grow embrium, snow drops, and other herbs such as mint, rosemary, garlic, lemon grass, and half a dozen others. Most of the herbs were sprouting before his leave ended.

He left with Sigrun and Warden Hestel, the bright and chipper human warden with clever fingers and a sense of humour which meshed nicely with Sigrun’s. Their patrol of the arling was interrupted on its fifth day by curious rumours of a haunting in one of the local Bann’s woodland hunting grounds. Upon further investigation the three of them found a lot of dead things that had decided to stop being dead, even though they really were dead, and they had to be convinced of the fact that _‘you are dead and need to go back in your grave now’_ via a lot of swearing and a significant quantity of fire.

Connor made the very poor decision to let the three of them fall asleep in those woods, leading he and Hestel to wake up two days later feeling very angry at the demon responsible for the entire horrible undead mess. Sigrun had reported the incident back to Vigil’s Keep before they woke up and the three of them had to chase after the messenger before the Warden Commander could be put in a fit.

Connor had a throbbing headache for the next day and a half, with the chase helping nothing. He struggled to eat anything more complicated than a boiled-down soup of his own herbs, but had the satisfaction of both Hestel’s solid approval of his worth as a Warden and his own demon-free dreams. He hadn’t been tempted by the demon so much as turned around and confused by it in the dreamscape to the point where it had tried to tell him he wouldn’t escape without making a pact with it. Sigrun’s dwarven nature had kept her safe, but Hestel had been a hostage who had only realized the trickery being played on her mind as soon as she saw Connor with her in the Fade. As soon as the demon had shown itself, the two Wardens had shown the creature how badly it had misjudged them.

Connor actually let Mistress Valora know he was back at Vigil’s Keep before he made it back to his own room. She had a list ready for him and after his bath and dinner Connor had half the embrium bubbling away in the distiller before going to bed.

“Warden Guerrin, if I may intrude,” was Nathaniel’s very formal entry the next morning, while Connor was busy trying to whip snowdrop oil with the last of his original dawn lotus powder for a sleep aid Valora needed. His arm was tired from the mixing and he set the copper bowl down with a sigh, addressing Nathaniel and thankful for the break.

“Of course, did you need something?”

“Something most certainly beneath your time and effort, ser.” That was… certainly strange… “But you’re the first one I thought of. _Boys_.”

In to Connor’s room and looking _most_ unhappy, came Nathaniel’s nephew Thomas and Commander Surana’s son Kieran. Connor had very little contact with the Vigil’s children beyond the occasional sight of them here and there outside in the fine summer weather, but these two he knew: Thomas and his sister Natalie by virtue of how often they shadowed their uncle when he was home, Kieran because he was son of the fortress’s master. Both boys were black-haired and treated by the summer sun, Thomas with an explosion of freckles across his nose and cheeks, Kieran with an unsavoury red blush over most of his face. They were in simple tunics and trousers, Kieran’s of notably higher quality with ribboned edges and bright stitching, but they were both filthy with grass and dirt. They looked damp. They looked _miserable_ and both stood with their hands behind their backs.

“Show the good Warden the trouble you’ve made this time.” Nathaniel told them firmly, but in the way enchanters often would with apprentices who were guilty of stupidity rather than harm.

Both boys presented their hands, palms up, and Connor hissed in sympathy. Spindleweed. Kieran’s fingers were trembling from the tiny white needles spearing the shallow skin, Thomas’ right palm blistered to an angry red from his own run-in. Both boys had scratches up their arms from further contact with the fleshy pink hazard, Connor looked at Nathaniel for an explanation.

“Fishing.” The Warden answered. “Told them to keep away from the weeds when hunting minnows for the hooks, but _somebody_ knew better about how to get around it.”

“I had a glove!” The Commander’s son protested. “It won’t burn you through that! Thomas pushed me!”

“I did not! I _slipped!_ ”

“And here we are.” Nathaniel finished, looking to Connor with a shrug. “Can I bother you to fix these two up? Doesn’t need any magic, just some elfroot’ll do it.”

“Oh- _oh_ -! Yes, I can do that.” Connor flushed, he hadn’t had anyone come to him for something like this since Skyhold. “Come to the light, boys.”

Thomas whined and cried at the pain of Connor plucking the first few needles from his hand with a set of tweezers. To calm the boy he took one of his smallest spatulas and dipped a small lick of honey on to it from the jar open and waiting to be added to the snowdrop mixture. Thomas was teary-eyed but quiet as he sucked on the treat and Connor finished pulling the long, vicious spines out. A smear of green elfroot jelly and a strip of gauze covered the deepest part of the wound. He rolled a piece of wet gauze in his hand and clenched his fist around it, freezing the water, and he told Thomas to hold on to it tight until it thawed or the pain went away. He treated both his hands and then took to Kieran, who tried to show how tough he was by not asking for the sweet first.

“ _Baker’s mess…_ ” The boy hiccupped after Connor got through about half the spines in his hand. Nathaniel cuffed him. Connor was shocked he had the gall to hit the Arl’s son and stood quietly, collecting the licked-clean spatula from Thomas and dipping the edge in the honey again.

“That wasn’t a cuss,” He said quietly as he passed Howe, who was smug and standing with his arms folded.

“We both know what he _meant_ by it.” Connor gave Kieran the honey and finished working with his hands, giving him the same instructions about the ice as Thomas.

“What do we say to the Warden?” Nathaniel asked as the boys seemed over their ordeal and were fidgeting to be gone from the boring room.

“Thank you, Ser.”

“Thank you, Warden.”

“Off with you- _and keep out of Felsi’s garden!_ ” The boys escaped without seeming to hear Nathaniel’s warning, leaving the two Wardens alone and giving Connor a chance to say something.

“You really put your hand on him though?” About the knock on the head for Kieran.

“What, didn’t you ever get it at Redcliffe?” Howe asked him with both dark brows high.

“From my nurse and a tutor now and then, maybe.” It had been a long time ago but nothing really stood out. The Circle had been much faster to dole out that kind of punishment but Connor had been good at keeping his head down and his hands out of trouble.

“Well when I was a boy here at Vigil’s Keep _I_ was the Arl’s son, and lemme tell you I got it good whenever I had it coming.” Nathaniel explained in a brisk tone. “It takes a village, Guerrin. Do you really think the Commander has the time to come down and give a shout every _single_ time his boy starts climbing something he shouldn’t or snatches an apple only an hour before dinner?”

“It wouldn’t be fair to keep him locked upstairs all the time either,” Connor filled in the obvious alternative. Honestly, _that_ sounded more like his childhood than the possibility of getting smacked by Master Dennet or one of his father’s knights. Nathaniel had a contemplative look to him now though, like he’d remembered something.

“To be quite honest, before he went to Orlais that was a lot more like how he lived.” Wha-? The Commander’s son had lived in _Orlais?_ “It’s not really our business- but you might not have heard it at all from inside the Circle, would you?”

“Heard what?”

“About two years after the Blight, Surana vanished.” Nathaniel explained. “Personally, I thought it was Anders’ fault- you know about Anders now, I trust?” Connor did. “Well I thought it was that Kirkwall mess, but actually he’d gone off to find where Lady Morrigan had vanished to after the Battle of Denerim. We started getting letters from him here at the Vigil with instructions on how to reach him, but no one could ever follow the bird to where it actually went when we answered him. He was gone nearly a year before he brought Morrigan and Kieran with him to the Vigil. I think they were only here a month before she left with the child, and six months later he went ahead and left to be with her again. And they just kept doing that, trading off who had him and where they were living. It wasn’t until the Mage-Templar war broke out that he came back for good and brought them back for an entire summer. Kieran was… a lot different back then.”

“How so? He seems normal enough, and he’s thick-as-thieves with your nephew.”

“Like I said, Kieran was _different._ ” Nathaniel leaned hard on the word. “Sweet boy, well-mannered, yes. But _different_. You couldn’t have a conversation with him, not really, he’d be everything you’d expect from a well-mannered nobleman’s son and then out of nowhere tell you your blood felt too fresh, or your spirit was too bright for him to see clearly. He could tell Wardens apart from anyone else with a glance, and would get so excited if he saw someone he claimed had elven blood like he does. I don’t think I ever saw him out of his mother’s shadow that entire summer, and whenever Thomas or Sorran and the other children tried to play he’d insist on staying in the Commander’s apartments and refuse to go out with them.”

“Nathaniel,” Connor interrupted, because this didn’t sound like the child he’d seen around Vigil’s Keep. “This is the boy who runs across rooftops and shouts out what people are holding during card games.”

“I tell you, Orlais _changed him_.” Nathaniel insisted. “His mother went there to serve Empress Celene when the war broke out and Kieran naturally went with her. I know she wound up serving the Inquisition at some point and Kieran was with her then as well, but by the time the dust began to settle and the Magister was dead, they returned to the Vigil and he was completely different.”

“It must have been a change at Skyhold then, not Orlais, because I _never_ saw him running around while I was there.” Kieran, pass up the chance to climb the courtyard steps in new and ever-more-dangerous ways? Kieran, not hold his arms out and walk the battlements over the gully on his toes? Kieran, leave the Inquisitor’s strange, _strange_ mounts unmolested in the stables? Impossible, the boy Connor knew from Vigil’s Keep would have either been the bane of every person working at Skyhold or otherwise his mother had found a way to chain him up and keep him civil. “From what you describe he seems happier now though, doesn’t he?”

“He told me this is the longest he’s ever lived in one place before.” Nathaniel’s eyes and voice mirrored a softer sentiment when he said that. “Almost two years now. Maker willing, they’re finally done moving him around.”

“Maker willing.” Connor agreed, and when Nathaniel left he was able to ponder a bit more on the strange black-haired boy who ran the Vigil ragged in his wake.

A few days later, Connor was called on again in another unexpected way. The Keep’s stablemaster knocked very hesitantly at his open doorway and stood there fumbling his hat between his hands, trying to work up the nerve to disturb a Grey Warden from a simmering bowl of poached arbour blessing. When Connor finally got a reason out of the man for what in the Maker’s Sight had him so nervous, the man produced a rumpled recipe from his vest pocket and shyly explained his willingness to pay for the brew.

“That is a _lot_ of deathroot,” Connor marvelled, and on that point alone was ready to refuse! “Give a man this and he’ll drop!”

“Not for a man, Grey Warden!” The horsemaster gasped, “For a horse- One of the Arl’s good mares, she’s getting too rattled for my liking and needs a calming draught, a heavy bit of sleep with the rest of those things in there to cleanse her blood. I was to put in an order to Amaranthine but that’s a day’s journey there and back, nevermind the time it may take for the Formari to prepare it. I don’t need gallons of the stuff, and you’re right here.”

“It’s _only_ for a horse?” Connor clarified.

“On my honour, Serrah. I’ll gladly pay you for your time and the ingredients.” Which was interesting to Connor because he already received a stipend and Valora paid him in the herbs he used from Vessa.

“The Vigil already pays me, Horsemaster. I can have it for you by tomorrow morning if that’s alright?”

“Maker’s Blessing, Grey Warden.”

More requests filtered their way to him in that manner. A specific soap recipe from the laundry, cured powders for the kitchen, several noxious brews for the Silver Order’s archers. Connor’s floor became an as-orderly-as-it-could-be arrangement of bottles, growing pots, filled jars and reagents. The first time Velanna came into his room through the open door the former Keeper let her jaw go slack and stared.

“Um… Mistress Howe?” Connor finally said, carefully pruning only as much arbour blessing as he felt safe to take from the very small, very delicate plant resting in a box of soil by his open door. Maker help him he didn’t know what he’d do with all these things when winter settled in.

Velanna dropped an elven oath, and then finally noticed Connor. The Keep’s archivist was holding a book in her thin, blight-veined hands.

“Nathaniel was right, you _do_ need this.” She said, marvelling at the bits of paper stacked and tied together on Connor’s desk, the rest stuck to his work wall with bits of glue. “I thought he meant you needed a spell book, a crutch for you circle mages who don’t have an oral tradition like the Dalish to remember things.” She looked up and her shoulder seized when she realized the few hanging clay jars Hawke had already yelled at Connor for but Connor had ignored him and kept them up there. “You _absolutely_ need this.”

She shoved a heavy, blank-page tome at him and left in a rush saying something about Garevel, and Connor stood there like a fool for several seconds before he heard his distiller start to make it’s _‘I’m done boiling and now I’m just burning things’_ sound. Once he’d dealt with _that_ , he went back to the book.

It was a heavy leather-and-wood bound book, thick with wide white pages of smooth parchment. The wood was sturdy and darkly stained, the leather protecting its spine and the glued and tightly strung paper. The inside cover had words carved on it that simply read: _Property of Warden Guerrin, Mage of Amaranthine_.

By the time Connor went on his next assignment, he’d cleared all the stray, loose, easily-misplaced slips of paper out of his room and transcribed every recipe, reagent, thing-to-buy and thing-not-to-lose into the notebook. It made his life far, far easier. He was too worried about getting the book rained on or torn apart to let it leave the Keep with him when his two weeks ended.

Connor’s assignment was not written and handed to him, but verbally told to him by Commander Surana who was in a _foul_ mood. Summer’s end was approaching. The Warden Commander seemed visibly incensed by Connor’s well-meant _‘request’_ from several weeks prior, and he claimed he could not perform the Joining without an important but hard-to-obtain ingredient: Lyrium Sand.

The sure-fire bet was Orzammar, but Orzammar was incredibly far from Amaranthine. Connor was told to bring back half a kilogram of the sand, and it was the first mission he was on point for. Surana gave him a gold sovereign to cover meals, overland costs, and any nights spent at an inn while travelling. For the sand itself, he was given ten sovereigns. Surana then told him to select two people to go with him.

Connor asked Evie if she was alright coming with him but regrettably found out Surana needed her to help him break the silent stalemate between Vigil’s Keep and Soldier’s Peak in Highever. He asked Hawke and the Warden immediately said yes. The third person he asked was Hunter An’eth.

“I- of course! Yes, Warden!” An’eth had been serving in the Silver Order since arriving at the Vigil. Connor took her despite knowing it might _possibly_ annoy the Commander. He’d promised Keeper Lanaya he’d give the Dalish her joining, and he’d let Connor get him with a second promise to do the same thing. Connor chose An’eth.

The three of them searched Amaranthine’s market first. Lyrium _dust_ was uncommon but not terribly difficult to find. Lyrium _sand_ was far more dangerous because that was when it began being potent enough for people to sicken from direct contact, or in Connor and any other mage’s case: start bleeding from their eyes and gums and have their blood turn thick and congealed so they died horribly.

Connor finally visited the Formari Guildsmen in Amaranthine. Theirs was a square, squat building that bore pennants for the College of Enchanters, the old Formari hand and pestle, and the Arling of Amaranthine’s gold bear. It was guarded by the city’s watchmen but its doors were wide open in the fading summer sun, welcoming the Wardens inside for their search.

The only room they could enter was a wide hall where the business was done. Connor had the strangest sense that they should stick around, that there was something about the robes and soft, level voices of the Formari that could entrance him to linger, but he refused to do so. This was _his_ mission. _He_ was in charge and _for once in his life Connor would not mess it up_. Connor had a month to reach Orzammar and return to Vigil’s Keep with the sand, he _would not_ let it take longer.

“Maker, he did this to punish me.” He was, however, ready to throw up.

“ _Calm down,_ Guerrin.” Hawke told him as they left the guildsmen with no sand but news of when the next shipment would arrive: _next month_. “He sent a mage to find magical ingredients, you’re over-thinking this.”

“Didn’t you hear what they said inside? _Next month_. Not this month, _next month_.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“ _This month just started!_ ” It was incredibly bad!

“Then we- oh wait.” Hawke interrupted himself with a smile. “I’m not in charge, _right_. What do you think we should do, oh fearless leader?”

“Don’t make me cry in public, Hawke, I can’t take it.” He pleaded, his tunic and gauntlets making him feel heavy and afraid in the talkative market.

“You know you say that pretty often but I’ve never actually _seen_ you cry.”

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to start.” This was not a good day for him.

“Um…” An’eth, Connor would later discover, could be a stubborn spitfire when she wanted to be, but in the company of two human men in a human city the hunter was unwilling to share her voice. “But… how fast does a dwarven caravan move? They… might already be on the Highway.”

Connor needed a bit more prodding to understand that she was suggesting that-

“We head them off on the highway before they reach Amaranthine! Right! Yes! That is a _very_ good idea!” Connor was quite certain they were all going to get lost, very lost, and that he would end up without pants at some point. Thankfully it was hard to get lost on a suspended stone road that only went in two directions, and after a hard ride through spitting rain and the cool wind of dying summer, they found the dwarven merchant who did not haggle Connor out of his own shirt. It didn’t cost the full ten sovereigns either, because Connor was thankfully used to haggling with merchants at the Vigil.

It cost him nine sovereigns, which really wasn’t any better. Dwarven respect for the Grey Wardens only carried them so far when it came to money and Connor didn’t have much ground to argue from what with riding so hard to find them and then only wanting one thing from the assortment of magical, mystical, and alchemical wares. He was also paralyzed by nerves.

They’d been given a month. Connor returned in _two weeks_. He watched Hawke hand the dangerous parcel to Garevel and wanted to _weep_ from relief, but the Seneschal just went ahead and made his day even more stressful.

“Recruit An’eth, I understand you may be exhausted but there’s a very important event being held this week amongst the Silver Order. It’s lucky that you returned as quickly as you did or else you may have missed your chance to qualify!” There was. A competition. Surana had ordered a tournament amongst the Silver Order for six prized spots in the Joining. Connor had almost foiled his own request by taking An’eth away from the keep.

An’eth was spirited away by the excitement of having a chance to fulfill her obligation to her clan and the Grey Wardens. Hawke vanished from Connor’s side saying something about a bath and belly full of food. Connor himself was grabbed by the Seneschal’s eyes and could not move from his spot until the man put on a wide, excited, frightening grin and beckoned the mage to follow him.

“I _finally_ spoke to the Arl!” He announced as they walked through the Vigil, turning familiar corners and passing halls Connor had learned well over the last two and a half months. “His Grace has agreed, and everything will be taken care of.”

“Uh-”

“Mistress Valora is ecstatic as you may well expect, not to mention Mistress Velanna. But of course we will have to make preparations to have an apprentice or at _least_ a helper assigned to your service.”

“ _What?_ ” Appren-!?

“Oh yes, Mistress Felsi was rather pleased as well.”

“Seneschal- what are you talking about?”

“Why, what we discussed of course!”

“We-? _What!_ Seneschal I don’t think we’ve spoken in over a month!”

“No no, we met right before…” Garevel slowed and then he stopped, holding the package of Lyrium sand in one hand and gesturing absently with the other, like he was connecting dots in the air. “When I went to go- and you were… oh but wait. Oh my, yes it seems you’re right. We did _not_ discuss this.”

“What is going _on?_ ” Connor pleaded, and Garevel merely chewed on his bottom lip and then stroked one hand across his blonde moustache and beard.

“Why, you’ve been granted additional privileges, of course.” Nothing about that statement warranted an _‘of course’_ at the end!

Rather than stand there and stomp his feet shouting for an explanation, which he would not get from a man like Garevel, Connor gave a confused indication that the Seneschal should just lead him on. He did so in a chipper way, bringing Connor down a drafty corridor with an exterior door at the end of it. They turned at an open door and Connor ignored the way his boots crunched on grit and dirt from an unswept floor, because this felt unreal to him.

It was a workshop. Dark, dingy, dirty. There was a wide stone counter with a wooden top to it across the entire wall from the door to the end of the room, where a water pump and sink were set against the wall with a large, cracked, grimy window. The next corner was a large stone hearth, cold and dusty with a rusted grate over the front, a very sad looking and possibly broken cauldron resting limp and forgotten in the old ashes. The rest of that wall was taken over with floor-to-ceiling shelves, empty but for broken bits of glassware and forgotten paper slips. On the wall next to the door was an old blackboard, chalk missing.  There was a wide wooden table that took up most of the available space in the room. It needed to be sanded and stained, but it was built of heavy, hardy Fereldan oak.

“You’ve taken your hobbyist enthusiasm much further than I initially expected,” Garevel was droning on in the background. Connor couldn’t really hear him, he was too busy running his hand over the rough, gouged surface of that table. “But his Lordship seemed more amused than concerned by it. Mistress Valora has complained at length about your working conditions however and Horsemaster Dareth has made several requests for this workshop’s reopening since you began supplying he and several local herdsmen with draughts for their animals. As long as you don’t accidentally poison anyone at some point, which I sincerely doubt given Valora’s confident summary of your skills, the workshop is yours.”

“Just like that?” Connor asked, breathless.

“I believe the Arl wishes to confer a promotion to you along with the workshop when he returns from Soldier’s Peak, but I doubt he expected you to return home so quickly.” Home. The Vigil was Connor’s _home_. “As the matter is based on merit versus a field promotion he’s the only one qualified to say for certain. He should be back by the end of this week unless negotiations with Soldier’s Peak require an extension.”

“Is Captain Bouclier with him?”

“Yes, as is Warden Constable Oghren, and Warden Sergeant Hestel.” Garevel reported smartly. He seemed excited, like he could barely hold his smile together.

Connor was dumbfounded. He was awestruck. Until Surana returned he wasn’t promoted and didn’t have a workshop, but as soon as the Commander _did…_

The shelves needed dusting. The table and countertops needed sanding and varnishing. The window was cracked and the mortar looked weak and crumbling. The fireplace needed to be scraped and cleaned and the floo might need to be checked. The glass windows on the cabinets were murky. The chalk-shelf on the blackboard was broken off. The cauldron had a massive hole rusted through the bottom. There were spider webs _everywhere_.

But it was a workshop.

“One last thing before I leave you to soak up the moment, Warden.” The Seneschal gave Connor a sealed envelope, a thick pad of red wax keeping the document tightly closed. “Good day, ser. And congratulations!”

“Thank you, Seneschal.” Connor’s voice was thick, his eyes were heavy and stinging. He saw the address _‘Ser Connor Guerrin of House Guerrin, Resident of Vigil’s Keep’_ on the front of the envelope, flipping it and waiting until his blurry eyes made out the seal of Redcliffe pressed into the crimson wax.

He gave a weak, wet laugh and tossed the letter down, unopened.

“Hawke.” A few minutes later Connor had not calmed down at all, but Nathaniel’s door was closed. Sigrun’s room was empty, and Hawke’s was wide open. “Um- do you have a moment?”

“Maker’s Breath, Connor!” The senior warden scolded, animated as he rushed past Connor and shut the door quickly, rounding on him with a stern, forceful look and a shove at his shoulder that almost made him stumble. “I didn’t make that comment about you crying just so you could go and wander the Vigil weeping. What in Andraste’s Light happened after I left? I thought you’d be right behind me!”

“I had to talk to Garevel,” Connor managed through the thick heat of tears he kept catching before they could fall, brushing them off with his fingertips, his wrists, the backs of his hands.

“ _What_ is it with you having talks that leave you looking like this?” Hawke railed, grabbing Connor by the strap that held his staff and giving him a solid shake. “This time you’d better tell me! First Surana, now Garevel: spit it out!”

“I- nothing’s wrong!” Connor said in a rush, left shaking after the rude tug and shove. “I’m trying to calm down, I am, but it’s _good_ news this time.”

“ _Spit it out!”_ Hawke growled again, still holding Connor by that leather belt across his chest.

“They gave me a workshop.” He stuttered. “It’s filthy. I need help fixing it- can you-?”

“Yes.”

“ _Thank you._ ”

“You stupid, short-sighted Mage!” Hawke laughed, shoving Connor again harder this time, but he meant it playfully and his hand was ready to clap and catch Connor’s in a tight grip to make sure he didn’t go flying back. “Didn’t I tell you not to over-think things?”

“You did.” Connor felt shaky and weak, clutching Hawke’s warm hand tightly and trying to ground himself with it. He didn’t want to wander around _weeping_ as Hawke had said, but he wasn’t good with things like this, his body didn’t know any other way to handle it. He hung on tight to Hawke’s hand, and when the other Warden put his second hand over the back of Connor’s, it felt safe.

“ _Say it_.” Hawke complained. “Say whatever that is you’ve got bubbling in your brain, Guerrin.” Connor nodded. He’d do it. He took a shaking breath and looked at his friend properly.

“You know how you said you spent your whole life moving from place to place because of your family?” He asked, waiting for Hawke to take the words in and nod. “I never did that. I didn’t move around. Redcliffe, the Circle, and Skyhold. I called Redcliffe home because I was born there and my family’s hailed from it since before Calenhad’s time. But the Vigil…” He didn’t know how to explain it. He didn’t think he had to. “The Vigil is _my_ home. I belong here.”

“Good.” Hawke told him, returning the tight grip and clapping their hands hard with his free palm. “I’m glad, because Andraste Guide me I know exactly what you mean and remember how horrible it was not having a real place to be.”

“I think we should go get drunk.” Connor suggested. It was out of place but it made Hawke laugh and pull him around until he had his arm around the back of Connor’s neck, shoving his head down hard.

“I think that’s a smashing idea!” Hawke grinned. “We should celebrate!”

“With fifty silvers worth of Fereldan wine-” Connor grunted, hands fumbling trying to get Hawke to ease up a little. “Let me up!”

“No, I think I’ll just drag you around like this.”

“Hawke _-!”_

_“Onward!”_

Connor did manage to get free before leaving their hall together.

And he and Hawke did manage to get very, very drunk before nightfall too.


	12. Six For Summer's End

Seneschal Garevel expected any labour, materials, or extra costs required to set up the apothecary workshop to come from the Keep’s own finances. Hawke and Connor were permitted to help as resident wardens, but this was the Seneschal’s domain. It took two days just to clean everything with the two wardens and three other sets of hands armed with stiff-bristle brushes and plenty of rags and soapy water. Apothecary Ridrick had been a very old man who had not cleaned very often, and after retiring he hadn’t cleaned at all before leaving the Vigil and rejoining his family out on one of the homesteads a day’s ride from the arl’s seat.

Dead rats, bird’s nests, too many spiders, old beds of ash that had turned to hard clay, black marks from spilled burning powder, murky glass windows that needed to be washed and buffed and washed again, stuck on globs of _‘whatever it is don’t touch it._ ’ It was quite the mess.

Garevel was _also_ working hard on arrangements for the Silver Order’s tournament. Summer’s end was almost upon them and the Vigil’s main courtyard was raked and her shallow holes filled with gravel. Her arena was repaired with fresh wooden railings and new nailed-down boards at the perimeter. Ropes were strung across the open area from multiple places, ribbons and banners being woven by servants along with wreathes of summer green and flowers in preparation to decorate the fortress. Several of the Vigil’s fluttering banners were reeled in for beating, mending, and even washing to make sure they were bright and beautiful.

Commander Surana returned with Evie and Oghren a week later, as expected. Evie found them after cleaning herself up from the road and changing out of her armour. She had deep lines under her eyes, a pale pink look hiding under her normally rich skin and making her cheeks look hollow and tired. She wasn’t smiling when she wandered into Connor’s room and invited herself down to sit on his bed next to him. Hawke was sitting backwards on Connor’s chair talking to him about how much wood they’d have to plane off the workshop’s counters before they could sand and varnish them.

“You don’t seem like you had fun at the peak,” Connor remarked when Evie ignored their greeting. She huffed, closed her eyes, and startled him by dropping her head down on his shoulder. “Did it not go well?”

“My countrymen are fools…” Evie complained softly. “Very stubborn, very proud fools.”

“If you’re tired, go to bed.” Hawke told her, and Connor just hummed uselessly. Her thick, knotted hair was still damp, it smelled like roses and tickled against his ear. “Or just lay down there, I doubt Guerrin will mind.”

“I don’t mind,” he said weakly. “We’re just talking.”

“Nng… tell me what happened with you,” she said, pulling off his shoulder with a slow, tired breath. She kicked her shoes off and pulled her legs up on to the bed, twisting until she could crawl down the bed and lay herself down flat over Connor’s green covers. She sighed again and twisted until she had one arm tucked under her head, knees bent and her eyes trying to stay open. “Why are you talking about countertops?”

They told her the good news and Evie offered him a very genuine smile, an honest congratulations, and survived only a few more minutes before she dropped off to sleep.

 _‘Don’t start,_ ’ Connor signed, but Hawke was already half-way through his own comment.

_‘You’ve never had a woman sleep in your bed before, have you?’_

_‘Shut up.’_ Hawke was _grinning_.

_‘I knew it!’_

_‘Neither have you!’_ Connor felt himself start to burn.

_‘That’s not true.’_

_‘She’s our friend, don’t be like that!’_

“You two had better be talking about countertops.” Was Evie’s slurred response against her own arm on the bed.

That night, Connor finally retrieved the letter from Redcliffe. He’d ignored it all week, always telling himself he was too busy, or too needed, or too disinterested to bother with it, but now he felt he had to. The Silver Order’s tournament would begin tomorrow and Connor’s only role to play in it would come at the very end when six members were chosen to attempt the Grey Wardens’ Joining. Connor _had_ specified An’eth for the ritual, but even he could see that having five winners and then one person just walk up to claim the chalice would be both unfair to the Silver Order and _embarrassing_ for An’eth.

Alone in his room he cut the letter open with a knife, sliding the thick, silk-like parchment out into the light of a magefire lamp he cast for himself. The address still needled him: _Ser, House Guerrin,_ and _Resident_ , three things he was not. He was a warden. A warden of Vigil’s Keep, not a resident. Resident was the word for servants and craftsmen. Connor was a _warden_.

And this letter was from Arlessa Isolde Guerrin of Denerim, his mother.

He read the letter and then tried to sleep. He tossed and turned for what felt like hours: his room too stuffy with the door closed but too cold with it open. He could hear the strings from his hanging plants creaking from the ceiling. The smell of the herbs overwhelmed him.

The next morning Connor was summoned to see the Warden Commander and he brought the Arlessa’s letter with him. Surana expected loyalty.

Lady Morrigan had left Vigil’s Keep weeks ago, entrusting her son to Mistress Felsi and Seneschal Garevel in the Commander’s absence. Kieran, Thomas, Oghren’s fire-haired daughter Sorran, and a gaggle of other children were loitering in the Commander’s antechamber when Connor walked through the open doors, the children marvelling at a pair of mabari hounds who seemed to relish the attention: one was the sleepy, battle-scarred old dog Connor only ever saw here in the Commander’s apartments, the other was a much younger, leaner animal that was happily wrestling and playing tug-o-war with the excited young ones. Kieran had the older dog spread across his lap and was scratching its fat belly, hardly looking away from his friend’s games as Connor passed them.

The reason for the children all gathering indoors for once was obvious: several bowls of chilled summer fruit and scraps of cheese had been picked clean and left on the room’s table, empty pitchers smeared with little hand-prints cluttering the table next to half-empty glasses of water and heavily diluted juices and wine. It seemed that with the Lady’s absence, her salon was the children’s domain.

Connor thought he heard footsteps shadowing him when he knocked on the Commander’s office door, but ignored it when the door swung open to reveal Zevran’s smiling face.

“Warden Guerrin!” The elf chirped, offering him a hand which Connor accepted with a brisk shake just to be polite. “Come in, come in.” He let Connor inside with a simple, “Your Warden, as you’d hoped.”

“Do close the door, Zevran,” Commander Surana said in an offhand voice, placing a half-finished portion of cheese down on the plate at his elbow next to a small pile of sliced fruits. A plate across the desk from him was empty and probably the assassin’s own, Connor had eaten in the hall before coming here. “Warden Guerrin, I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

“Thank you, Commander. You asked to see me?”

“I did.” Surana smiled and stood up behind his desk. He seemed like he was in a much better mood today than the last time they’d spoken. Like Zevran he offered Connor a hand-shake and he took it humbly, Surana glancing down and touching his fingertips to a sheet of parchment on his desk. “I was just going over Seneschal Garevel’s summary of the repairs down in the old workshop, he says it should be in order by the end of this week.”

“That’s the hope, sir.” Connor would have said more when their hands broke but Surana looked past him, confused.

“Zevran?” The door was still open, Connor looked back and quickly and saw… a little black haired boy quickly scurry out of the office under Zevran’s arm, the Assassin pinching his lips until they were white. The Commander gasped and looked at his desk, noting his missing plate and stolen breakfast. Connor remembered the footsteps- but Kieran had been holding a hundred-pound dog!

“ _How?_ ” The boy’s father asked quietly.

“He is getting _very_ good at that,” Zevran was visibly forcing his smile down and made the comment in as heavy a voice as he could fake. “Excuse me.”

“Yes, run away before I put the blame where it belongs!” Surana barked, but the door was closed this time and Connor just bit his lips together when there came a loud rumble of laughter and fleeing children from the other room. “And he’s not good at it _yet_ , no one ever knew when it was _me_.”

“You stole _food?_ ” Connor was scandalized only until he remembered a green pear enchanted to roll across the table of a West Hill tavern.

“Didn’t you?” Surana countered. “We never went hungry at the Circle, but all bets were off when it came to fresh fruit.”

“I always ate that first just to keep the other apprentices away.” Connor admitted, remembering the much sought-after apple or handful of swollen blueberries. Little bits of sunshine in a cold stone tower.

“A member of my cohort would find a way to annoy the rest of the table, and I’d collect what they left unguarded to share with him later.” Surana recalled fondly, clearly not as bothered by his pilfered breakfast as he’d first implied. “But I didn’t call you up here to discuss parenting or apprenticeship. Warden Ensign Connor Guerrin…”

Connor wasn’t wearing his armour and Surana was robed in the silk and brocade of an Archmage, his usual wear when at home in the Vigil. Still, Connor made himself stand at attention when the Warden Commander’s voice took on a stronger tone, and when the elven mage picked a wide, shallow velvet box, there was a pleased glow hiding near his fair eyes.

“As acknowledgement of your brave performance in the Order’s name while on duty in Orlais, Warden Ensign Guerrin, I am pleased to grant you the official rank and title as Corporal of the Grey. Your seniority over junior wardens will be respected and acknowledged, as will your capabilities and skills in the eyes of your senior wardens. The Vigil thanks you for your bravery, Warden Corporal.”

Surana unlatched the box and turned it so Connor could see the contents. There were two silver ribbons meant to be sewn to the collar of his tunic to denote his rank and a small green enamelled silverite badge in the shape of an elfroot leaf. It signalled to others that he was a medic and healer, and seeing it there made something warm collect in his chest. A new silverite belt buckle completed the ensemble, and Connor accepted the case with a soft, humble thanks.

“This is for Orlais?” He asked.

“I finally finished going through all of the reports your senior wardens wrote up concerning the Approach. The badges themselves were finished while I was at Soldier’s Peak.” Surana explained in a tone Connor almost thought sounded _warm_. “I expect your version of the High Dragon incident at some point as well. Not in writing, but I’d still like to hear it.”

“Aha- that- that tale may be growing a few more teeth with every telling, Commander.” Connor answered nervously, skin cold and clammy with the thought of what Oghren and Nathaniel might have written.

“I know someone who adds more trees every time she tells the tale of Witherfang too.” Surana replied in an even voice, nodding to show he understood Connor’s lack of enthusiasm. “But unless there was anything you wanted to discuss with me, I think we both have plenty of work to focus on today.”

Connor felt his smile seize, a cold thu-thump beating in his chest and causing the fire between his ribs to flag and retreat. Surana noticed it and Connor slowly closed the velvet case in his hands, tucking the very, very important box under his arm as he searched for words.

“There is one thing.” He forced himself to say, reaching in to the pocket of his tunic and pulling the letter out, handing it over for Surana to take. “I received this from Denerim a week ago. I read it last night.”

“You waited so long?” The Commander asked, reading the address quickly and noting the red seal, holding it between his scarred red fingers at the corner. Connor felt himself being looked at and kept his eyes down. “You don’t have to give this to me. You have the right to your own letters.”

“I know that, thank you, sir.” He murmured back. “But you know more about Denerim and my family than I do, and I don’t know what to do with this.”

Surana didn’t ask him twice before pulling out the letter and reading it. His eyes met the following:

_To my lost boy, my only son, Connor:_

_Time has been cruel, my son, and words alone cannot unmake the path the Maker Himself has set us down. I reach out to you now with all of my beating heart behind my pen. There are things which must be explained to you, but not across so vast a distance and with such an anger scorching the very air we breathe._

_Please, I ask you, the sweet child I once held to my very breast, to open your heart and forgive the kindness of your uncle who did not know the impact of his words when he met you so unexpectedly and tragically in the Grey Warden camp. I understand you do not know Rowan, that her life and yours are two saplings wrought from the same seed and yet transplanted across the Maker’s varied garden._

_But she is ill, Connor. My only son, I ask for the kindness that was once such a part of your nature before the Maker cursed you with the magic that sundered our family. My only daughter suffers without end and should we lose her then the father you both share shall live no more, leaving your uncle and I alone to mourn with walls and petty feuding between ourselves and you._

_You did not know of Rowan before this, but she is sunshine, my son. She is the joy we lost when the Maker tore you from our arms. She is your mother and father’s only hope in this world, and you are the very same to her._

_May the Maker’s Light lead you back to your family who needs you now as a garden needs the rain. Andraste watch over you in these difficult hours, my poor lost boy._

_-Mother”_

Surana read the letter much faster than Connor had, and he was quick to speak as he deftly folded and reinserted the page into its envelope.

“Are you asking me for extended leave to visit Denerim?” The Commander asked, his voice flat but shrewd as he handed the letter back.

“No, Warden Commander.” Connor answered, taking the letter back and nervously running his thumb over the wax seal on the back. “I wanted to ask you if there was any word of Lady Rowan taking ill while you were last in the capital.”

“Your sister visits Denerim regularly throughout the year, but lives most of her life at Redcliffe where she is heir.” Surana explained, his voice still holding that cold edge of reserve. “As far as anyone was aware this summer, she was in normal health.”

“Then what sort of disease or poison or _magic even_ , could make a child fall so ill but not have anyone notice it?” Connor asked, and he watched Surana blink slowly and try to follow Connor’s argument. “They were trying to find me last _spring,_ if Rowan had been ill then people would know about it by now. So why me? Why not any other herbalist or a sanctified healer from the College of Enchanters?”

“The Breach left few Spirit Healers able or willing to practice their skills,” Surana said slowly, but he had one hand up and was brushing one scarred finger across his thin lips. “And you have first-hand experience with how ready the College is to send its mages out on assignments for nobility.”

“But I never learned how to commune with healing spirits at all.” Connor quickly reminded him, growing ever more confused the further down this hole he went- this was why he hadn’t been able to sleep last night! “But _you_ did! You did it in the Deep Roads, I felt it.”

“Why ask for an, as far as they know, untrained mage, when I’m standing right here?” Surana filled in, and Connor wanted to throw his hands in the air- exactly!

“Nine-thirty-three, that makes her, what? Ten years old?” Connor felt himself growing angry. “Pardon me, Commander, but you don’t strike me as the type to sacrifice a child for the sake of spiting her parents, and furthermore-”

“King Alistair would never stand for that kind of petty feuding anyways.” Surana completed the thought again, showing his red palm and pressing the air. “Calm yourself, Warden. I’m still with you.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Connor was winding himself up so tight he hoped something in him snapped. “Part of me wants to say that yes, of course I’ll try to help because- because she’s just a _child_ , but then the rest of me just puts its foot down and says no. She’s a child, why haven’t they found anyone else yet?” Surana took a breath to comment, but then hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“That would be a very bold lie to tell.” The Commander wound up saying.

“If all of this has nothing to do with Rowan?” Connor felt himself beginning to fret, it didn’t make sense, he didn’t _understand_. “If she’s just an excuse? But _why do they want me?_ Why lie? Why keep lying?”

“Do you want to accompany me on my next trip to Denerim?” Surana made the offer abruptly, folding his arms under the red and black of his robe. “Or travel with an escort to Redcliffe? Your uncle might be there but your mother keeps to Denerim, especially when I’m in the capital as well. You could try to meet with Rowan or at least learn how she fares before making any further decisions.”

“No.” Connor said quickly, because the feeling that ran through his gut told him so: those were both _bad_ ideas. “I don’t like the idea of going so far from Amaranthine just to try and call a bluff, so many things could go wrong with that and whoever went with me would be a week’s messenger ride away from the Vigil. And if I go with you to Denerim then it will just be a repeat of what happened with Arl Teagan when people start trying to use me as an excuse for something or another.”

“You’re not bad at this, you know.” Surana complimented him. “A little cautious, but with a good eye for these things.”

“I think you mean that as a compliment, Commander, but I don’t think I _want_ to be good at this.”

“I want you to remain here at the Vigil until the tournament and the promised Joining are complete.” The Archmage explained, steering the conversation in a more practical direction despite the way he tightened up at the mention of the ritual. “Consider it an interruption to you regular leave pattern. But after that’s done, what do you want to do about this?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you ignore it, it will get worse.”

“What if I wrote back just telling them to leave me alone?” Ah- something in him hurt at his own suggestion. The way his mother had written the letter, the pleas enclosed in thick black ink. To answer that with ‘ _Sod off_ ’ felt… wrong. “What happens when someone refuses to play games?” Connor asked, and Surana considered this for a moment, head tilted so his scarred ear was higher than the other.

“How do you mean? I hope you don’t intend to fight the Landsmeet.”

“Maker I hope not.” Connor swore and then _immediately_ bit hard on his lip. “Pardon me, sir.” Surana just gestured with one hand for him to keep going with his idea. “What if… I just ask her all the questions I just asked you? Just call it all out in my own letter and demand that they make sense of everything?”

“That’s actually the best way to do business with Orzammar,” Surana commented, but he sounded open to it. “It can’t hurt to try. House Guerrin will either have to come clean about something, or start patching holes in what doesn’t make sense and reveal even more inconsistencies.”

“Then that’s what I should do?”

“Are you looking for my approval?”

“Honestly, Commander, I’m looking for the fastest, simplest solution to all of this so I can just go back to my workshop and wait for you to send me after Darkspawn instead.”

Commander Surana laughed like Connor’s honesty surprised him, told him to go write his straight-forward letter to Denerim, and then dismissed him to carry on with his day.

It took Connor four tries to write what he thought was an appropriate response. The first one got away from him and took up several sheets of messy parchment. The second was less emotional but much longer. The third was too emotional and _even longer still_. The fourth one was as close to: “ _You lied to me for over ten years and now you’re not making any sense. Why have you been holding out hope for over eight months looking for me instead of finding a more suitable mage to help her? Reply with her symptoms and I will forward them to Arl Surana, who is an Archmage and Spirit Healer and is Patron to the Formari Guildsmen of Amaranthine, and is the person whom in my humble opinion House Guerrin should have gone to in the first place for this sort of thing._

_-Warden Corporal Guerrin of Vigil’s Keep.”_

Actually, nevermind. That wasn’t _as close to it_ as he got, that was precisely what he got. One page of neatly written parchment, folded over itself, with plain white wax that he stamped with his magi ring and posted on the second day of the Vigil’s tournament.

But oh, what a _tournament!_

Connor enjoyed the second and third days far more than he had the first one, what with that letter being gone. The courtyard was filled with ribbons and cut flowers, local Banns arriving with their knights to view the spectacle and arrange their own melees and jousts. It was the Dalish festival but on a _massive_ scale, the entire fortress brimming with people and colourful tents blooming around the Vigil like brilliant green and white and yellow flowers.

There were six prized positions to be won, six potential Wardens to be recruited from the Silver Order. Connor had never seen Commander Surana dressed as a Ferelden Nobleman and was horrified when he almost mistook him for a servant at the high table on the second night of competitions: leather and fur and embroidered wool, only a red sash of an Archmage across his chest and a large silver griffon buckle at his shoulder reminding everyone that he was their Mage and their Warden.

There was not nearly as much dancing as the Dalish, but the _food._ With the Banns came the merchants and with the merchants came the late summer fruits and pies and meats and breads and beers. It was magnificent.

The Silver Order’s militiamen were the champions of the three-day event. They bested each other with swords and axes and arrows, shot moving targets, jousted from horseback, grappled in full armour, ran obstacle courses and tested their endurance with footraces throughout the hottest parts of the day. Little brass rings were awarded based on performance, and they were counted as tokens of merit for fighters to earn their way into the final event.

Connor could enjoy the spectacles and the beer, but was surprised by how often he found himself called to work. All those blunted axes and hollow battering rams still left their marks, and gouges, and breaks, and bludgeons. With limited salve and through the happy buzz of the alcohol, he was _very_ careful about who and how he chose to distinguish between what needed a bit of elfroot to ease the pain, and what needed a very gentle pulse of magic.

By the third afternoon Connor knew not to go near the alcohol and had made sure his corporal bands were properly stitched to his tunic. A final melee was held at sundown, a field of twelve fighters thrust into the ring with blunted arms but real armour, the arena freshly raked to keep the surface smooth for what would be the most important fight in six of their lives.

Connor was happy An’eth was in there with them, ready to offer coins to a pot the Wardens had running between them. If it was wrong to gamble on something like this then it occurred to none of them to feel badly, because Connor had twenty silvers on An’eth’s name and Hawke had matched him in favour of a tall fellow with a curved two-handed blade.

The first warrior fell and then down went a quick-footed fighter with two blunted daggers in her hands. The only person not shouting and cheering was Commander Surana where he’d reclaimed his Grey Warden armour for the tournament’s finale. The Archmage sat with his burned hands folded in front of him, eyes glowing in the torchlight as Zevran formed a barely-there-shadow behind him. Kieran was next to him and dressed in the cleanest suit of quilted gold and white Connor had ever seen him in, and the boy jumped and shouted next to one of the Banns’ young daughters. The Banns themselves were cheering, shouting, and drinking as much as the crowds gathered below them.

“ _Victory!”_ The Wardens shouted when the third fighter dropped their weapon and clutched a deep gouge bashed in over their eye. “ _Vigilance!”_ An’eth’s green Dalish shield took another fighter and wrenched his hand-axe away, her boot kicking his chest and sending the dwarven warrior flying. _“Sacrifice! VICTORY! VIGILIANCE! SACRIFICE!”_

Connor’s voice flew with the chant when An’eth lost her shield and turned to the reason Connor wanted her to win. When her shield was wrenched from her arm she dropped her short sword and swung a hunting spear from her back into her hands. It was long and slender for throwing, marked with red paint down its hard but hollow body, Dalish ribbons tied to one end and fluttering as she beat head and back against armour and exposed flanks.

An’eth had told them she had travelled to the Free Marchers as a young adult, and there she’d met the Qunari, and there she’d learned that staves were not just meant for Mages. The violence that tore down anything to come too close from any angle was thrilling in the flickering light of the arena. Connor expected lightning and fire to launch from the spear like a mage’s staff, but there was no magic at work when she danced, only skill.

Her light form was picked up and tossed, but her body twisted and she curled through a roll, landing in a crouch and swinging her staff like a viper that tripped one fighter and lashed out to catch another coming at her in the sternum. That unfortunate warrior coughed blood and landed flat on his back.

He made six.

The courtyard exploded with noise and bellowing cheers. _“VIGILIANCE! SACRIFICE! VICTORY!”_ spilled from mouths perched from the edge of the ring all the way to the battlements. Garevel was ringing a great brass bell in his hand and shouting in a voice no one could hear in the celebration of noise.

Connor saw Zevran’s hand reach out and clap Surana on the shoulder as the Banns shouted and cheered the victors. The Commander had not reacted, but he was nodding to whatever Zevran said and placed his hands on the carved arms of his regal seat.

And then the tone of the crowd suddenly changed, and the nobility reacted with sudden outrage.

“ _No!_ ” One of the standing fighters with blood splashed against the face of their helmet shouted. Connor could barely hear them, but he _did_ see them raise their sword where it had fallen in the dirt, and then they charged. One of the other victors, a vicious Dwarven fighter with an empty quiver and smoking bandolier, charged the warrior’s legs but was beaten back and trampled by the outraged man. “ _It’s been years! You’ll do your time, knife-ear!”_

Connor felt magic that wasn’t his snap through the air, aware of the Arl rising in the same motion he drew the veil to bear against his will. The only thing faster than Surana’s magic was An’eth’s spear.

That red-ribboned spear cut the air and punched through the join of her attacker’s armour. It lanced his shoulder, the force knocked him off his feet and down flat, still twenty feet from the now-crouching elven warrior. An’eth of Clan Zathrian unfolded herself slowly until she was standing at her full height again, clad in the Silver Order’s Amaranthine-bound white armour laid over the molted green cloth of her people. She pulled the helmet off over her tattoo’d face and the shaved sides of her head, her orange hair a shock amidst the wavering torches.

“ _I’m no knife-ear, shem!_ ” She shouted, nostril’s flared. She hooked her fingers through the eye-holes of her helmet, looking around at the other four victors in the ring, her wide elven eyes combing through the sea of cheering fire-lit faces, and then found the nobility and the Arl. When Surana saw her the spell collecting around his fingertips was reeled in and squeezed tightly to dispel it. “ _I am Grey Warden!”_

 _“I like her, Guerrin!”_ Hawke whooped, smacking Connor hard in the back. _“I like her!”_

 _“I’m not healing him!”_ Connor hissed back, letting Hawke rest his laughing face on his shoulder as the dust settled.

An’eth made a fist and hammered it to her chest, eyes dropping to the ground. The other four; another human man, the dwarven scout, and a human woman with a broken bow, each repeated the declaration and saluted the Warden Commander of Ferelden. They were Grey Wardens.

Surana looked at them and finally nodded, working his hand free from Kieran where the boy had grabbed his arm when he’d stood with such anger. He spread his hands and let his voice carry far and loud over the quieting spectators.

“For dishonour against the Arling and her Banns, a seventh lies fallen in his own disgrace.” He said, boos and sharp hisses filtering through the warm night air, heckling the man who was groaning in a slowly creeping pool of blood. Connor, bitter as he was, quietly rescinded his earlier comment: he would probably heal that man. “Vigil’s Keep! As your Arl and your Commander, I present you with your victors! The Warden Recruits of Amaranthine!”

The noise built up slowly like rumbling thunder, and then crested over the walls of the Vigil and spilled out in to the countryside around them. Connor let his voice climb with them, hopping the fence into the ring of fallen fighters as some of the Victors knelt to help their competitors up.

Connor saw Captain Maheron Lavellan of the Silver Order’s mages storming through the victory crowd and _very very very very_ quickly moved to head off the other mage. An’eth had already seen her Dalish brother and was doing the same thing, saying something firmly in their shared tongue that made Maheron throw down his spitting staff and charge a little faster at the prone man laying with his speared shoulder.

Connor didn’t speak Elven, but Connor was pretty sure he knew _‘I’ll rip that bastard apart with my bare hands along with anyone who tries to stop me’_ just by tone and context.

He hurried, took a bit of a leap to hurry faster, and landed square in front of the elf who them proceeded to shove right through Connor and literally push him back with no sign of stopping.

 _“_ Maybe, maybe, _maybe,”_ Connor babbled, feet sliding in the dust. “You let me heal him and spare the Silver Order any more-”

“ _Shut up, Shem!_ ” Maheron tried to buck Connor off but Connor could be a _very_ stubborn Warden sometimes.

“I’m just saying if he bursts in to flames it will be _very_ difficult to explain!”

“No explanation! No one talks to one of the People like that without-”

“ _Getting impaled on a spear and almost having the Warden Commander obliterate them with magic yes I think the point has been made!”_ Connor was joined by An’eth, and the smallest person in the very uncomfortable huddle was the one who made Maheron actually _stop_ _walking_.

“ _Hahren_ , no.” She said quickly, “It’s done, listen to the Warden.”

“It is _not_ -”

“ _Ma Hahren!”_ The rest of it was a babble of words Connor didn’t know, wasn’t going to learn, and wasn’t involved with.

“The Joining ceremony will happen at midnight, please, you two, focus on that instead!” And then he left the Dalish very very quickly to their fighting, and went to address the idiot who’d gone and nearly ruined the end of the tournament.

Other members of the Silver Order had gathered, perhaps four in all, and one of them was checking the damage done to the fallen warrior’s back and shoulder. The others looked lost and disappointed as Connor arrived, stepping back and letting him come close to where the stink of blood was starting to bleed through the sweat and dust of the competition.

Frankly Connor was certain he’d had it coming.

“No, not this one.” The man on the ground had removed his helmet, or had it removed from him. He was Fereldan by his bright red complexion and had his jaw clenched tightly, choking back the pain of his nasty wound. “I served the Arling for _years_ , this _pup_ won’t put his ungrateful hands on me.” Maker Be Praised, Connor had thought they were done with all this _‘why didn’t you get stuck in the Silver Order too?’_ bollocks with the tournament’s announcement.

“You do realize this _pup_ is one of the few people in the Vigil who can actually heal wounds like this.” Connor told him, unimpressed with the bad attitude of the man potentially dying in front of him. But he also couldn’t force the man to take his help, and he was even less inclined to give it when the knight spat at him.

“Gavric _stop!”_ One of the militiamen standing over him pleaded, scandalized and raising both hands to Connor. “Pardon him, Warden, it must be the drink he had before the ring, it’s making him say awful things. He’d already _won_ and then-”

“Yep, I was watching.” Connor put it as bluntly as a rock in the face. “The whole keep was watching too.” Dishonourable fox thought he was so clever, shouting slurs at an Elven victor and attacking her after the melee was already over.

“ _Fuck you, Mage!_ ” Oh yes, this Gavric fellow was not getting any magic out of Connor, not unless that arm of his came under direct threat. “Bring the apothecary instead!” Connor raised his hand.

“That would also be me.”

 Ser Gavric went into such a fit of profanity that a militiaman, the one who’d been looking at his bleeding shoulder and arm, slugged him hard in the face and made the man go limp. Connor was then persuaded to, if not forgive the multiple offenses, then at least look past them and be a grown man for the exact amount of time it took for him to take a knee next to the unconscious man’s side, observe the damage, and deal with it.

He was tempted to leave a scar on purpose before he started, but when the spear and its wide, _hollowed mouth_ were removed from the arm along with most of Gavric’s chest armour, Connor took his job a lot more seriously. It had ripped through him so badly that had Connor not had magic to help him the man might have lost partial use of his arm.

This was clearly the sort of wound that should have been padded over with elfroot and bandaged for comfort’s sake, but then Connor remembered exactly who he was healing and simply neglected to mention it. He was also interrupted by Commander Surana’s appearance along with a tall, proud looking human woman Connor recognized as the Silver Order’s Second-in-Command after the Archmage himself. At his heels came two eager mabari, the same ones from his apartments: the slow old dog and the much younger, prancing hound whose pink tongue was lolling from her gaping mouth.

“Your judgement?” Surana asked Captain Harla Renth of the Silver Order. She took a sharp breath before hissing it down at the wounded knight.

“Dismissal tomorrow morning.” She announced, and the other militiamen gathered near Connor withered but offered no protest. “I’ve had enough of his brawling and his bad-mouthing, but I never thought he’d embarrass the entire Vigil like that. Fighting after the winner’s bell, it’s _shameful_.”

“Will he recover, Corporal?” It took Connor a few seconds to recognize his own rank and look up from his work.

“Oh! Yes, Commander.” Connor blurted out, suddenly much humbler again before looking back down at his handiwork. “He’ll be sore, but except this scar that I can’t erase his arm and shoulder will work just fine.”

“Then he’ll be able to find work.” Surana announced, his voice and his face giving no indication about how that made him feel. “Captain Renth, make sure he receives his full pay for this half of the month and then see him out of the fortress by noon tomorrow. Unless he comes back contracted under a mercenary’s colours, I don’t want to see him again.”

“Understood, my lord.”

“ _Now_ can we not stand in the middle of the arena?” A soft voice hushed as Connor stood and two of the militiamen lifted their unconscious and disgraced companion away. When Connor looked again at the Commander in the wake of Captain Renth’s departure, he saw Zevran hovering within arm’s reach of Surana, eyes anywhere but on the Archmage himself. “You do know how much I hate having you two in a crowd.” Two?

“You worry too much.” Surana answered him dryly, then looked at Connor to sa-

“But I didn’t see his anger _at all,_ father.” Kieran interrupted next to him, complaining with a long, tired look to his young face. Connor hadn’t seen him until now but there he obviously was, hands around the collar of the younger mabari who was now rising on its hind legs trying to get the boy’s attention. So that meant… it was _his_ mabari? “I should have! It should have been so clear as soon as he started winning the melee.”

“I think it’s safe to say he didn’t win anything, young master.” Connor told him, and Kieran put on a confused, narrow little frown for him.

“I’m not your master,” the boy said in that typical ‘ _I’m much smarter than you grown-ups’_ voice most children in the Vigil had. “I’d have to be a Grey Warden to do that.”

“Which you won’t be.” Surana budged back into the conversation, his hand pressing the back of his son’s head down briefly as a light reprimand for his tone. “Thank you for handling the injured, Connor. I would like you to report to the Vigil’s Chantry shortly before midnight tonight. Nathaniel and Hawke are already informing the victors that the Joining will take place then.” Connor nodded at the order.

“Of course, Commander. Do I need to bring anything?” Surana had the only ingredient Connor knew the joining needed beyond the blood: the Lyrium sand from Orzammar. The commander took a slow, deep breath before answering him softly.

“A prayer should be enough, Warden Guerrin. Good evening.”

And so they parted until midnight.

 


	13. A Bitter Bit of Life

The next morning, after the tournament, the melee, and the Joining, Connor wandered quietly into the Vigil’s library. He needed time in the quiet near dawn, because he hadn’t slept all night and felt certain if he tried something cruel would creep into his dreams and haunt him. He didn’t deserve to sleep after what he’d done. He didn’t know if he deserved anything at all. He wanted to hide in the chantry instead, but he’d defiled it.

Velanna was the Vigil’s archivist now and her first act had been to physically clean the library. She’d chased out every spider, dust-bunny and chantry-mouse, leaving the two-level space quiet but fresher than it had been when Connor arrived. The books had been taken down and reshelved in a more reasonable and orderly fashion. After going throughout the Keep looking for any stray books to take care of and asking what people wanted or felt they needed from the fortress’s shelves, she’d sent away orders to the printmakers of Amaranthine, it’s Formari, and then Denerim.

Until the arrival of the new books or recovery from the tournament, the library was a quiet, calm place to hide in. It felt safer to tuck himself away here than in his room with all his growing plants, or down amidst the productive atmosphere of the half-refurbished workshop. Connor didn’t feel capable of being productive today, he’d done enough damage last night to scare his hands to cold, stiff silence.

“Warden Guerrin.” Mistress Velanna found him sitting at one of the empty tables tucked between the scanty shelves. Light had begun to filter through the library’s tall windows, but it was faint and far away, not quite dawn and not enough to stir a fortress that had cheered and drunk itself late into the previous night. Connor didn’t have any books or papers in front of him, not even a candle, and looked up from his folded hands very slowly when he heard the other mage’s voice.

“Last night’s Joining was a success,” the shadowed woman told him, her voice low to respect the early silence. “Yet you seem troubled.”

Success? Connor stared at her, standing there in her usual long yellow dress, her hands bound with grey warps to hide most of her thinness and the blighted look of her fingers. He couldn’t fathom how that word related to what had happened.

“I killed three people last night.” He said, his voice grave and chest hollow. It wasn’t loneliness plaguing him this time and dampening the burn of magic, it was shame.

“Three people failed their Joining.” Velanna corrected him, slowly stepping out of her shadow and approaching his table. “One of them by taking an arrow in their back.”

“Nathaniel told you that?” About Ser Melinda, the woman who’d triumphed in the Melee despite a broken bowstring. She’d watched her dwarven friend vomit red and black on the chantry floor, her eyes swollen shut from the poison she’d swallowed, the taint leaving her dead on the stones before Connor had wrapped is head around what happened or even made an attempt to stop it. It was his fault she’d been given the Chalice, his suggestion, his promise that had locked Surana in to the obligation. Melinda had tried to escape the Joining after realizing the price demanded of her, and she’d died with one hand on the Chantry’s barred door, two of Nathaniel’s arrows embedded three inches deep in her back.

“You brought two new Wardens into the Order.” Velanna said, leaning against the table and folding her thin arms. “They will remember the ones who failed.” Remembrance was the whole point behind the oath Connor had recited before Surana had given the chalice to the first initiate. He’d made Connor hand it to the three who remained after Melinda, and then it had been over.

“Who gave you your Joining, Warden?” Velanna was the only one of the Vigil’s Wardens who had not been in that silent chantry last night. Surana had stripped her status and she had respected that by keeping her distance. Connor would no sooner forget the stink of the dwarven woman’s blood, Ser Melinda’s pleading cries, or the look of abject horror on the face of the startled warrior who died minutes later at Connor’s feet.

“Hawke recited the vow,” Connor answered the question, thankful and yet feeling disgraced that he had been the only initiate at his own Joining. “Nathaniel gave me the chalice.” Surana had been too weak after the Deep Roads to stand for the ritual.

“And who was with you when you woke up?” She asked.

“Nathaniel.” He’d been right there in the Inquisition tent on the Storm Coast when Connor came around the next morning.

Velanna touched her thin fingers to his shoulder. Connor’s apprehension and guilt climbed higher when he realized how lost he must have looked to earn not just her sympathy, but also her comfort.

“It’s nearly dawn.” The lost Warden murmured. “Make sure your recruits see you.”

She vanished in her quiet way after that. Connor watched the sun continue to brighten, rays of gold cutting through the soft grey mists of summer’s end. When he stood up it was so he could hurry to the balcony hall where the new Wardens had been brought.

“Not a whole lot we can say to prepare you for something like that, is there?” He was cheerfully saying a few minutes later, watching one of those new Wardens slowly, groggily, come out of his deep and unsettled sleep.

“Melinda… Maker, I can’t believe it…” Warden Hassick, a tall, shaken man with freshly haunted green eyes. He babbled when he recognized Connor, his long blond hair unwashed and hanging in thin tangles after the blood and sweat of the tournament, the horror and cold sweats of the joining. His new room was the empty one between Nathaniel and Oghren in the hallway- not that Oghren _used_ his room very often, but he still got to keep one next to Hawke.

“The day is yours, Warden.” Connor told him, having already propped open Hassick’s balcony door for some air and seated himself on a chair next to the shaken man’s bed. “Take it to recover, and to mourn. Seneschal Garevel will see to your armour, but I have this for you- from the Warden Commander.” A small silverite pendant with a drop of the Joining blood in it. Hassick cradled the amulet in both hands with a heavy silence that carried, and then looked at Connor.

Answering the unspoken plea, Connor drew out his own pendant where he wore it under his clothes. Hassick stared at it, then lowered his face behind the yellow fall of his bangs.

“Did anyone else survive?” He asked in a tired, hollow voice.

“One other, yes. I was just on my way to see to her after making sure you were alright.”

“Maker- don’t let me keep you, Warden.” Warden Hassick’s eyes were red and threatening tears. Connor already knew that most of the Victors in the ring last night had been members of the same crew- Hassick, Melinda, Gavric, Shuelter, and Blanth. The man in front of Connor had lost a lot of friends last night. “No one should wake up alone after that… Thank you for being here but I’ll be alright now. Don’t let An’eth- Warden Athras, wake up alone…”

Connor nodded, set a hand on the other man’s shoulder, and then quietly left the room for the one at the very end of the hall.

He slipped through the door and found a stuffy room filled with sunlight, the lone occupant laying in bed with the covers up to her tattooed chin. She was asleep but resting poorly and Connor quickly opened the balcony door, took the chair from her desk over to the bed, and took a seat.

Why he was the one to do all of this made sense: Connor was the one who’d killed three people last night.

There were signs that at least one other Warden had been by however, most obvious being the old metal pail sitting by the bed that Connor took note of, and then went back to watching An’eth fight through her first hours of being a Warden. The elf’s blood-writing was pinched and furrowed, her lips white as she puckered them, teeth beginning to grind and eyes squeezed shut. She was coming out of it and Connor felt sympathy, ready when she had the reaction Connor had hoped luck would spare her from.

Warden An’eth’s eyes flew open, her spine twisted, and she shot upright in bed exactly when Connor stood and got the pail up between her knees. She vomited hard and loud against the metal, her voice mixing with the wet splatter as she gasped, found the sides of the bucket with her shaking hands, and heaved again. It didn’t matter how little she’d eaten before the Joining, it took everybody differently and this was the reaction Connor had dealt with in that tent many months ago.

“Easy, _easy_ …” He soothed, placing one hand flat between her shoulders but not rubbing, she could very well try to hit him if he was too careful with her. “Just let it happen. I did the same thing and I’m the _last_ person in the Vigil who’ll say anything.”

It ended shortly after that, but with a noise that was far less proud and capable than anything Connor was used to hearing from her. He removed the pail when she pushed it away from her, fetching a damp compress from the basin by her bed and letting her wipe her face and mouth with it. She sat there on the bed, elbows on her knees, holding the cold towel to her face for several very long seconds.

“Did Hassick survive?” She asked softly, not removing the cloth.

“He did. He’s a few rooms down from this one and recovering. You’re here in what’s considered your room now on the second level of Vigil’s Keep, overlooking the mess hall.” She pulled the cloth down slowly, revealing her eyes that were bloodshot and haunted. The first night always included nightmares.

“I passed out at the Warden Commander’s feet…” She said softly, sounding embarrassed.

“Trust me, that’s completely normal.” Connor told her with a nod. “Rumour has it the only one who didn’t lose consciousness was Constable Oghren, but I’m still not sure if that’s true or not.”

“I want to be ashamed,” An’eth whispered. “But Blanth and Shuelter…” Connor’s heart hurt. “ _Melinda…_ ” It was his fault.

Connor gave An’eth her pendant and his condolences. Because she seemed calmer than Hassick had been he also explained the door rules: open door meant free entry, closed door meant please knock, knocking itself was sometimes frowned on, a locked door meant _sod off_.

“You need to let the Seneschal know when, where, and how long you’re leaving for, but otherwise have free reign about the Vigil. I’m not sure what the others do in their spare hours, honestly.” Nathaniel spent most of his time with his family, Oghren Connor assumed the same of and Hawke was a handyman. Of Sigrun and Genevieve Connor simply had not asked.

He should probably make a point of asking.

Not right now though.

“Am I truly a Grey Warden?” An’eth asked him cautiously, and Connor made himself smile.

“You are.”

“The Warden Commander, he saved my Clan from a terrible curse years ago during the Blight.” Connor had heard that story from Keeper Lanaya: the Curse of Witherfang. “I was so angry about what the werewolves did to us that I chased down the humans they’d reverted back to. I went as far as the Free Marches before realizing I was just continuing a cycle he’d tried to break. By the time I came back to the Clan all I wanted was to try and undo that damage. I didn’t know if it would actually happen though… The Joining… I thought it would be Darkspawn.”

“In a way, it kind of is.” Connor admitted. “I know you don’t need more bad news right now, Warden, but that nightmare you had right before you woke up?” An’eth looked at him with weary, curious eyes. “Yes, um… those don’t go away. If you need any help trying to learn how to block them out so you can sleep properly then please don’t hesitate to ask any of the Wardens, myself and Mistress Velanna included.”

“Thank you… Warden Guerrin.”

Connor left her to rest.

The next few weeks were a _mess_. Surana and Garevel were too wrapped up with the Banns who’d visited to bother giving orders to the Grey Wardens, leaving them in a situation Connor quickly learned was very very bad: bored Wardens immediately became _missing Wardens._

 _Connor’s_ workshop had been completed and he’d moved his supplies and tools into it after the tournament. _Connor_ was in no danger of running off anywhere, but he was in the middle of setting the distiller back up on its new permanent counter-space home when the first Wardens took flight.

“Hey, Guerrin, what grows in the Fallow Mire?”

“Undead.” Connor’s distracted and poorly put answer to Sigrun.

“Sweet! We’ll bring you back some of their guts, bye!”

“What- _what!? Sigrun!_ ” The Ferelden’s Fallow Mire was at least two weeks south from Amaranthine! But Sigrun took three other Wardens with her and left with the Seneschal’s distracted blessing.

Two days later, with Connor meticulously watching his first full batch of elfroot and snow drops boil over the workshop’s fire in a new black cauldron, came Nathaniel.

“I’m taking my wife to Denerim to buy books.” He declared in a charming, satisfied voice.

“Um… Do you need anything for the journey?”

“The titles of any books you can think of acquiring for the Vigil.” Connor couldn’t think of specific _titles_ , but he did know that anything about the care of herbs or works on herbalism beyond the two books he already had would be appreciated. “See you in two weeks then!”

By the time Connor should have expected his own orders to arrive almost every Warden at Vigil’s Keep had vanished, leaving only himself, Hawke, Evie, An’eth, and Hassick behind. The immediate downside of this was that, of course, the Wardens deserved to be fully supplied before they left, but Connor had only had a proper work-space for, at most, a fortnight

Outfitting nearly twenty people with potions, poultices, elixirs, and herbs ran him right off his feet. He had no surpluses and no extras, no great big pots of anything to pinch and pluck from to get things right. Half of every kit he helped supply was built from Formari-made supplies the Vigil still understandably purchased. This annoyed him. This _irked_ him beyond rational thought.

“Embrium, Spindleweed, Snow Drops, Crystal Grace, Arbour Blessing and Deep Mushrooms.” It wasn’t his place to order Junior Wardens around, he had exactly nine months and one rank over Hassick and An’eth, nevermind the fact that Hassick was several years older than him and had fought in the Silver Order since the Breach. But Connor’s new cupboards were empty and Surana was knotted up in protocols from the unexpected arrival of Teyrn Cousland from Highever. “As much of it as you can both carry. I know you’re both completely overqualified for this, _but-_ ”

“Maker, Guerrin, it’s just herbs.” Hassick, after he’d recovered from his joining, was a much taller man than Connor had originally thought. When he was clean and well rested he had that kind of honey-gold hair that tried to glow in sunlight, the beard left to grow around his lips and chin a darker shade and sat pleasantly under his strong nose and stern eyes. His weapon of choice was the large crossbow strapped to his back, his Warden Armour fitting him well in the same style Nathaniel wore. He had a kit to repair the device if anything happened to it and nearly ten pounds of just bolts to load and fire it with: Connor had seen him make short, easy work of the Vigil’s target range with them. “But if you need them you need them. Yes, I joined to fight Darkspawn, but I’m not going to complain that the Arling is _peaceful_.”

“Neither will I.” An’eth agreed. “I’d ask if you want to come with us, but I think I know the answer.”

Connor knew the answer too. His gloves had become so saturated with the oils and solutions that his hands had gone first green, then purple, and now the tips of his fingers were black- harmless, but frustrating. He’d touched his face, he knew he’d touched his face, Hawke made sure _everyone knew_ he’d touched his face and the indigo streaks were embarrassing but he had to put up with them for a few more days. A bath would have helped him. A proper night’s sleep would have helped more.

“I’m down to my last bundle of snowdrops, if I don’t get more by mid-autumn there won’t be enough to carry the Vigil to next spring: they die with the first frost.” He’d tried to grow snowdrops three times and he’d _failed_. The Formari Guildsmen had figured it out, but they sold the herb for a premium and Connor’s numerous letters on the subject had all been answered with the Tranquil equivalent of _‘Nana-nana, we won’t tell you!’._ They made more off a pound of dried snowdrops than Connor did in a month.

He wanted the Vigil back to self-sufficiency by this time next year. He didn’t know where he found the audacity to set a goal like that with only cursory input from the Seneschal, but there was something about hearing what the Vigil spent each month on simple elfroot poultices that made Connor wither and bite his tongue around Garevel. Yes, the Vigil could afford what she spent, but she didn’t _have to_. Formari bastards.

“No Greenvine?” An’eth asked curiously, and Connor shook his head.

“Between Valora and I we grow just enough, and I’ve got another two planters growing outside my room. It’s a weed and it grows just fine through winter.”

“The Vigil could probably find the space to give you a proper herb garden.” Hassick suggested, and this was not the first time Connor had heard it.

“I barely keep the plants I already have alive when I leave the Vigil on duty-” Both of them pulled the same face. “Stop that! I do actually leave this place! The Commander doesn’t keep me chained to the fireplace. My point is I don’t have the time for a full garden.”

“You could get a helper.” An’eth suggested.

“An apprentice, maybe.” Maker, that word always made Connor do a double-take.

“I appreciate that you think I can just hire people without permission.” Connor said with a humble nod that made Hassick snort. “It’s fine. Most of what you two bring back I’m going to just cook down and store for the winter. Thank the Maker this is Amaranthine and not the Hinterlands with all their snow.”

“You’re sure we’re allowed to leave the Vigil without a veteran Warden like you with us?” Hassick asked, and it surprised Connor that he was so stuck on this.

“Like _me?_ ” But that was what sounded the strangest.

“You served half a year in Orlais, on the Western Approach.” An’eth supplied. Oh right, Connor _had_ done that. “You killed a High Dragon.” Connor threw his hands up.

“For the last time! I did not _kill_ it, I-”

“But you’re _sure_ that we don’t need-”

“Maker, Hassick, it’s just herbs.” Connor threw the comment back at the older man, and Hassick closed his eyes with a short little laugh. Good. He got it.

The two Junior Wardens left laughing about who between them was more likely to take down a bear, or what they thought they’d do if they felt Darkspawn out and about in the Bannorn. Their chatter and footsteps left Connor alone in the quiet with only the gurgle of the distiller and rolling breath of the cauldron to keep him company.

Connor, tired and annoyed with the mess of work he’d loaded himself with, got back to his task of lifting well-boiled deathroot from the boiling cauldron and setting them to cool on one of his newly finished wooden counters. The water he let continue to bubble away, the herbs he hacked with a large knife despite their heat and tossed them bit by bit into his mortar. It was too small for the amount of work he did with it, but the hard granite did its job mashing and grinding the roots into a very important paste. He wanted to get all of the paste made today and set out to cool, and then tomorrow he could-

Connor reached over the mortar for more chopped deathroot, hit the stone bowl with his elbow when he turned back, and smashed it to pieces on the floor.

Connor stood there.

And he stood there.

And then he threw the pestle on the floor to go with the shattered bowl.

“Fuck.” He took off his gloves, he pulled off his apron, he threw them on the floor too. _“Fuck!_ ” He snuffed the fire with one hand and left the workshop, just left the damn workshop because he hadn’t left it except to relieve himself and find food for the last two days. He had, for very stupid reasons, slept in the workshop last night bent over the table with his legs asleep on the only stool in the room.

He didn’t care about the bowl- well, he _did_ , but he was too tired to do his job properly. If he couldn’t do it properly then he’d waste both his own time and the Vigil’s resources: like the poisonous paste he’d just splattered all over the floor. Connor locked the workshop, wound through the Vigil to find his room, stripped off his stale and dirty tunic and grabbed a fresh change of clothes for the bath he rightly deserved, shutting the door behind him when he left.

The bath felt good. The food he sat down to immediately after it, hair still wet, was even better.

Realizing he’d locked his door and left both the room and workshop keys inside on his desk, was not good.

His balcony door was unlocked and Hawke’s door was open.

“You look like _shit_.” Hawke announced from behind a book with a bright orange cover and brass corners on the binding. He was reclined on his bed, one arm tucked behind his head.

“I look like _tired shit_ , you mean.” Connor corrected.

“Why is your face purple?”

“I started punching myself, it was fun.” He had enough energy to joke with Hawke. Somehow he always had just enough left in his reserves just for that. “I just need to go through your balcony door.”

“You locked yourself out, you stupid sod!”

“I did, yes, look at me the stupidest-” Connor rammed right into the door when it didn’t open. He tried the handle again but there was no handle, because Hawke’s door was broken, and Hawke’s door had been broken since he’d needed a component from the lock and latch to fix a door for Mistress Felsi. Connor knew this. Connor had watched him take the door apart as easily as most people cored an apple.

Hawke was deathly quiet. Connor looked at him where the other Warden’s lips were withered trying not to smile, his blue eyes silently howling with things unsaid.

“I-” Hawke uttered in a tight, wheezing voice. “Want you to _appreciate_ … the extreme effort I am putting in to _not_ -”

“Go ahead.”

Hawke burst out laughing.

Connor pressed his forehead to the door’s glass window, knocking it a few times. He could find Evie, he could climb to his balcony from hers over the wall as long as he didn’t step on his trellis of arbour blessing… That little plant had grown quite big over the summer and early fall.

“Maker’s _Breath_ you look like a Mabari that just lost its dinner.”

“I’m going to take a nap in your chair.” It was a good chair for reading, Connor’d used it before. “I’m too tired to use magic.”

“No magic, and no chair either.” Why was he _so-_ “Just lay down, Guerrin. We’ve shared a tent before and I’m not worried about you getting elfroot juice all over my bed.”

“That’s very charitable, I don’t trust you.” Trust being no barrier to Connor’s willingness to cross the room, crawl over Hawke’s heavy Fereldan quilt, and lay face down on the flat, horizontal surface. The bed smelled like his friend. It smelled warm and rough and a little bit like varnish. Connor was out in minutes…

But he was too tired.

 _“Oh… Are you **kidding** me!”_ He knew he was too tired as soon as he knew he was dreaming. “ _I’ve had a bad enough week as it is! Sod off!_ ”

Connor didn’t know where he was: where didn’t matter, because where was here, and here was in a dream. He saw his table, he saw the tubes and vials of the distiller- but they didn’t look right and he couldn’t focus on them to see why. He saw broken bits of a shattered mortar, heard disapproving voices through an open, shadowed door. The world of the Fade was grey and brown and old, ratty green.

“ _You fear…”_

 _“Shut up!”_ Connor raised both arms over his head, calling lightning from his fingers and throwing his hands down with spires of white and violet raining past him. The table exploded, the mortar melted, the door and the wall fell apart. Through the haze Connor saw the spires and far-away courts and boulevards of the Black City against the sky. “This isn’t what I fear! This is what _aggravates_ me! I just wanted a damn nap!”

“ _I offer you-_ ”

“ _Sod off!_ ” It was not a strong demon, Connor was just very tired, very frustrated, and very ready to deal with the situation. He would wake up, calm himself down, and go to sleep again properly this time, without all the-

“Connor?” Ugh he… he felt so _heavy_ … “Connor, wake up!” Hawke’s voice, his hand shaking Connor’s back.

He heard himself groan, felt how heavy his arms were, how much his exhausted skin didn’t want to stretch or pull as he wedged one arm under his body and hauled his head up with bleary eyes. He was back on the bed, back in Hawke’s room. He hadn’t slept long _at all_.

“Do _not_ do that again.” Hawke scolded him.

“Just… did it to annoy you.” Connor slurred, closing his eyes and aware of Hawke’s hand on his shoulder, grabbing the back of his shirt and shaking him trying to make sure he was awake. “I’m gonna try again…”

“No _demons_ this time.”

“Yessir…” Hawke shook him again and Connor groaned in protest- _what?_

“Have you not considered using your leave for, you know, being _on leave?_ ” Hawke drilled him and Connor had no fortitude left to listen to him. “Instead of doing two jobs?”

“No.” He mumbled, pawing at Hawke’s pillow- but it was wedged behind the Warden and hell, Hawke himself was closer.

“You need an apprentice.”

“ _No._ ”

“What are you doing?”

“Going back to _sleep_.” With the proper precautions this time, that beat of quiet in his mind that pushed everything else out. No frustration, no anger, no desire, no fear, no sorrow, no nothing. Just quiet. Just a thick robe of silence and slow that wrapped around him and let him fall gently through warmth to reach _rest_ …

* * *

 

And while Guerrin finally got some sleep, Carver decided that, um, this was okay. This was not a bad thing, having someone stubbornly put their head down right on him with an arm slung over him. There had been a demon, mages got weird when demons happened and Carver was not about to wake Guerrin up a second time unless he started making faces and twisting around like something was trying to pull him apart again. So fine, let him sleep, at least he was considerate enough to leave Carver’s hands free so he could read.

Not that Carver could concentrate with someone _sleeping on him_. But better he sleep and sleep where he could be watched than find a way back into his room and sleep all alone where anything could happen to him.

So this was fine.

“Hawke, Connor’s workshop is locked, do you know where- _you fiend!”_ Evie came right through his open door and made a shrill noise with Carver’s hands flying with _‘No words! Shut up! Shut up!!’_

 _‘I’ll kill you!_ ’ Evie’s fingers flashed, murder in her eyes. _‘You leave him alone!’_

 _‘There was a **demon!** ’ _He made that sign extra big. ‘ _He’s exhausted! And it’s my fucking bed what makes you think I did **anything**?’_

 _‘I’ll show you a real demon.’_ She said and Carver told her to fuck off, just one finger up in the air. It was so much more succinct. _‘Why is he even in here?’_

_‘He locked his key in his room. Again: he is **exhausted**.’_

_‘I was taking him something to eat, but there was a horrible smell and the door was locked.’_

_‘He’s been down there all week long the bad smell was probably **him**._ ’ Evie told him to fuck off, which was fair. ‘ _His balcony door is unlocked, can you get his key?’_

_‘Not a balcony, it’s a garden.’_

Carver hesitated. He looked down at the stupid mage breathing slow and deep against him, then looked back at where Evie was quietly watching both of them. Maker help him this was very, very difficult.

He signed ‘ _please’_. Evie brought a hand to her chest in scandalized shock. Carver just, arms up, useless, meaningless gestures that didn’t make signs and didn’t have words attached. He gave a hopeless shrug, what was he supposed to do?

Evie considered him for a moment and then drifted out of the room. A few short minutes later, she was back with a pair of bronze keys swinging from her dark fingers.

 _‘You two look cute like that,_ ’ she said after setting the keys down on his desk. Carver told her to fuck off. Instead Evie gazed at his bookshelf for a few moments, selected a thin volume of poetry he’d tried and failed to get all the way through, and curled up comfortably in _his_ reading chair.

‘ _You are a horrible person_.’ Evie didn’t see him say it, but she smiled and gave a soft and delighted little hum anyways.

Carver took a page from Guerrin’s book and let his arms down in the least awkward way over the mage laying on him, leaned his head back, and took a nap.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Few things warm my heart more than the idea of Connor becoming a mentor to someone the way Nathaniel is a mentor to him. I totally intended in this series to have Connor and Soren have that strong mentorship bond but it’s 100% Nathaniel’s domain ok.


	14. Demons, Demons, Demons

Connor was _mortified_.

“You… should have pushed me away!”

“Believe me I _tried_. You’re very stubborn in your sleep and would squeeze whenever I-” Connor left the room. Face burning, horrified tears scratching at his eyes. He fled Hawke’s room with his key and locked himself in his own, wishing their rooms weren’t next to each other.

 _“Guerrin it was a joke!_ ” Hawke left him alone for at least an hour and then came knocking on his door. “ _Connor! Maker’s Breath it’s not a big deal!”_

He’d fallen asleep on Hawke. And it wasn’t the innocence of _‘I’m falling asleep at the campfire and your shoulder is right here’_ or _‘We’ve been stuck in this hold for a week and Howe’s the only one with a hammock_.’ Sleeping arrangements when travelling were roughly established at best. He’d woken up with Nathaniel’s feet in his lap, Zevran curled up behind him, and Hawke stealing half his blankets before. That was all fine.

Literally crawling on top of his friend and nuzzling down to sleep on him for _an hour_ was completely different!

He spent the night in misery and the next morning crept down to his workshop. He cleaned up the smashed mortar, jarred the left-out deathroot stems and stored the boiled extract for later use.

A letter from Denerim arrived for him that afternoon, and Connor’s mood shot from upset to outraged.

 _“To my son Connor, self-styled of Amaranthine.”_ He was not _self-styled_ he was a Grey Warden of _Vigil’s Keep!_

“ _The marks left on my heart from your callous and uncaring reply have troubled me to no end. Even now I hold the page in my hand which once touched yours and am shocked. To make demands without proper consideration, as if such sensitive words could be entrusted to messengers under the long reach of those who presume to be your family’s equals or betters without proper foundation._ ” That was a dig at Surana, who _was_ House Guerrin’s equal-or-better because he’d killed a sodding Archdemon!

“ _You must come to Denerim post-haste. If it is money or means which you require, send your reply swiftly. Every day you hesitate your sister’s glory wilts!_

_-Your Mother, Arlessa of Denerim.”_

The taint woke up, that was how angry he was. Connor donned his armour, picked up his staff, and went straight down through the Vigil to find the Silver Order’s training grounds. Sod the workshop he had had enough.

“Captain Lavellan, if you have a moment, sir.”

“Warden Guerrin.” Lavellan was with his mages conducting drills, his silver armour protecting him from the brisk wind of early autumn. “I see you are armed, have you received orders from His Lordship? Do the Silver Order ride?”

“Sadly no, sir.” Connor was furious, his heart raging and beating thin daggers through his flesh as the taint told him to ride to Denerim _today_ and call the Arlessa to heel. “Are you very busy today, Captain?”

“Even if I was, I think I want to hear this.”

“I fear I’ve gone a bit stir-crazy leaving myself cooped up inside the Vigil these past few weeks.” Connor thought he was lying, but oh no, this was very true. “May I trouble the Silver Order’s mages for a spar or two?”

What wound up happening was several rounds of spars, and only a few of them he won. Just like his original fights now a full season gone, Connor’s best asset was his ability to get back up over and over again. These matches had rules: the first two he could use only his magic, the next two it was melee without spell power, the last one was against Sergeant Geoffrey, the self-taught mage with the violet tattoo down his face, and was a combination of both.

Frankly Connor had wanted to fight Lavellan because entropic magic seemed like a better way to beat down the taint and strangle his anger, but Geoffrey’s fire blazed and burned hot where it coiled through Connor’s armour and blistered his skin. He didn’t mind getting bludgeoned in the back of the head with Geoffrey’s staff either, because the blood hot and wet down his neck made him finally wake up and stop feeling like such a wretch.

He took a full-bodied blast of something hot and concussive to his chest through his open guard, and Connor rag-dolled out of the ring to land in a dazed heap.

“I feel a lot better now,” he coughed under the cloudy sky. “Thank you…” Oh Maker, his _everything_ ached…

“You stopped fighting!” The Sergeant was not pleased with him, but Geoffrey was never pleased with anything.

“Seven matches.” Connor reminded him, “Even Wardens get tired at some point. _Ow…_ ”

“ _Don’t you ever throw a match against me again!_ ”

Despite Geoffrey’s outrage Connor was invited to share the evening meal with the other mages and accepted. He felt less embarrassed about Hawke, less angry about his mother, and less awkward around the Silver Order’s mages too.

But then Lavellan had to open his big dumb mage mouth and say: “I want everyone to take special care before going to sleep, the Arl and I both felt something strong in the Fade last night.” _Andraste’s Fucking Tits_ Connor just wanted a good night’s sleep!

“Hawke?” Connor went upstairs after dinner and stood hesitantly by Hawke’s open door, the other Warden kneeling with his tools by his broken balcony door, apparently fitting a new handle to it. Hawke turned to look at him and was quiet for a few seconds.

“So I tease you a little bit and you go and get yourself blown up?” He asked, Connor snorted, aware that yes he still did look like a bit of a mess. At least his wounds had been easily cleansed with magic.

“No. You teased me so I went and cried myself to sleep like a little boy.” Connor corrected him, but Hawke didn’t smile the way he thought he would. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Hawke, it was rude of me to fall asleep like that.”

“No it wasn’t.” Hawke left his work and stood, crossing the room to him. He was being serious and Connor was alarmed- it meant he’d upset him. “There was a demon. I don’t care how fast you woke up or how quickly you felt safe enough to go back to sleep, a demon tried to get to you and you work too hard it let people ignore it when that happens.”

“I…” Connor felt warm and it was Hawke’s fault. “Demons _are_ dangerous, but I was also careless. I don’t get a free run making people uncomfortable on account of a little demon I didn’t block out properly.”

“There’s no such thing as a ‘ _little demon’_ and we both know it.” Hawke rebuked, and Connor pursed his lips for a moment, trying not to agree. They did both know this, Connor better than any other mage in the Vigil, and Carver Hawke better than any non-mage Connor had ever met. “And the Commander came looking for you tonight with that sleepless look he gets when something’s stalking through the Fade. Did you hear about that?”

“I did.” Commander Lavellan had already passed on the warning and Connor said as much now.

“What I’m _trying_ to say,” Hawke spoke in that heavy way again. “If you’ll listen. Is that Evie and I are here for you if you don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

“You two talk about me?” That shouldn’t have surprised or disappointed him as much as it did. Evie’s brothers and sisters in Orlais had been terrorized by demons and blood magic. Hawke knew everything about Redcliffe’s ordeals during the Blight. Why _should_ either of them trust him…?

“I’ll stop worrying when you’re better rested and not rattling the Silver Order’s chain. What was that about anyways?”

“My mother.” Connor blurted out, closing his eyes with quick regret. Maybe he could-

“No.” Hawke was sharp. “You’re not getting away this time: spill.” Connor did. About the sister he’d never heard of, the disease his family wouldn’t explain, and the borderline frantic way they kept demanding his presence. He let Hawke read the letters and the other Warden frowned through them.

“Maker, no wonder you’re stressed. Does Surana know about this?”

“He does, but he has Soldier’s Peak, Teyrn Cousland, and now a bunch of demons to deal with.”

“I don’t like her tone, something’s off.”

“I’m not going to Denerim.” On this at least, he would be firm.

“Good, I’m glad.” Hawke told him, the two of them in Connor’s room now after they’d tried to find somewhere more private and Connor could fetch the offensive letters. “Now can you muster up just a touch more of that sense and bunk in mine or Evie’s room tonight?”

“What? No!” Connor went very warm again.

“You shouldn’t be alone with that thing prowling!” Hawke argued, “I’ll sleep in my chair, I’ve done it before. The three of us can pitch a tent out in the courtyard for all the difference it makes, why take risks?”

“No _thank you._ I’ll take Embrium and I’ll be _fine!_ ” Connor was not fine.

Later that night with the Vigil wrapped in darkness, Connor was not fine.

The two best ways to handle prowling demons were to either sleep deep and safely behind wards, or soft and shallow so mages could wake themselves up at the first signs of a dream. Connor chose the former, and he was wrong to do so.

As he’d told Hawke, he took embrium before sleeping, boiling a kettle of hot water with the powdered reagent added to each cup as he poured, stirred with a bit of honey. The other mages, Surana included, took the hot brew away with thanks but without ceremony. Embrium was a sleep aid, soft and warm and stabilizing. It made your body feel warm in small doses and numbed pain in higher concentrations, and could keep someone asleep for many hours. The downside was its addictive nature, so Connor knew to use it sparingly: usually things were poached in water with boiled embrium petals, or the boiled and significantly weaker leaves were given orally. The powder was much stronger but for tonight the Mages would need it.

Back in the Circles, Senior Enchanters under Templar supervision had taken embrium together with _lyrium_ to chase off Fade creatures haunting too persistently around the tower. The lyrium helped mages keep their focus as they slept, readied their spirit to enter the Fade, and let their magic move more fluidly between the two planes. The same combination of embrium and lyrium had also once been part of the Harrowing: something for Apprentices to drink so that any demons that came through them would have to deal with a body already inhibited by the potion, but also something to keep Apprentices from exiting the Fade on their own without completing their task.

Most of the mages tonight took a small quantity of processed lyrium potion with their embrium, but Connor abstained. They were ready to hunt and fight the creature but Connor had had his lifetime’s fill of demons and quietly bowed out of the intentional encounter, facing no judgement for it from the others. Getting snatched up in the middle of a haunted forest had been his own bad judgement, he didn’t need to willingly throw himself at another monster and despite how much stronger the lyrium would make him, it would also cause his spirit to glow like a beacon in the Fade.

Connor took the potion to sleep. He laid quietly in his room as it started to take effect, casting several small, soft spells of protection, safekeeping, and restoration: magic that fed into his own mental exercises of expelling emotion… pushing out the feelings… falling far and… gently… to…

It failed.

Connor felt the brittle shell of his wards shatter, not even dropping into a dream before landing in the watery grey of the raw Fade. He couldn’t gauge time and didn’t know how long the wards had held, he just knew when they failed because he was aware when he should have known nothing between closing his eyes at night and opening them in the morning.

Without body or armour or weapons he fled, startled and suddenly wracked with fear. This was the Fade, he was dreaming, he needed to get away. His mind crafted stone walls, doorways, corners to dart around. Connor pulled his own footsteps together, the click of his boots and jangle of his belt buckle against the long silver quilt of his Warden Tunic. His gloved hands buckled the strap around his high collar to protect him, his pauldron folding silver and protective around his right shoulder, vambraces and the belt holding his staff to his back bringing a comfortable weight to his arms.

It didn’t matter if nothing was really here, Connor’s panicked heart was slowed by embrium and his body was laying drugged and calm in his bed. He couldn’t just wish himself awake, and unless something happened to rouse the Taint and make it burn through the potion he wouldn’t-

_I… can feel your **fear** …!_

Connor ran, and yes, this time he was afraid. No lyrium to bolster him and yet caught here just the same. He pumped his arms and his feet made him _fly_ through the shadows of the dream world.

Get away, get away, get away. The others would be here somewhere, they’d carve a portion of the demon’s domain to their own will, wrest it from the monster’s control, and the beast’s strength would work against it. Everything within the Fade was an expression of will and the Demon would find itself in direct competition with the mages it wanted to devour. Every crack on every stone, every dappled shadow on the muddy ground, the smallest details to the widest edges would be a battleground all weighing on the creature’s back, trying to crush it.

Get away, get away, get away. Connor didn’t run to search for them, he ran to escape. The further away he went the wider the domain would grow, the thinner the demon would have to stretch its power and attention. Eventually the edges would fray and leave hollow to edges for Connor to escape and wake up through- or so he was hoping.

Get away, get away, get away. Down crumbled steps, through a columned causeway. He remembered nothing, recognized nothing- he didn’t give the demon anything to use against him. Connor trampled over golden banners, vaulted the cracked images of stone griffons, and held his breath against the sweet scent of elfroot. If he gave it anything it would use it against him, it would slow him, stop him, trap him, and he would either have to hold out on his own until the embrium left his blood or one of the other mages rescued him.

The one good thing was that in the Fade Connor could run forever- but the demon? It’s reach was hardly infinite.

_Flee, dreamer!_

That’s what he was doing! Connor stumbled when the demon’s voice followed him, wet and cold and rasping with blunt teeth and wet tongue against his neck.

_No others, only you and I: feed me with your terror._

_“Hawke!_ ” He should have said yes, should have stayed close, should have let himself be watched. Should not have taken the embrium if his wards were just going to fail anyways, should have double-checked and cast them first before swallowing the potion, should have told Hawke to do as he pleased and sleep on Connor’s floor if it would have made him feel so much better. _“_ I take it back! _I’m not fine!_ ”

The stone corridor shook and broke open in front of him, fire surging out of the black gouges, crumbling one of the walls and providing a recklessly stupid path Connor followed: it was a dream, he took the chance.

The wall took him to water that stank like rotted flesh and sloshed to his knees. From there the demon sent him to a beach of clinging dusty sand, and mounting that took him into a steep slide down back through a broken window and into the same brittle stone passages he’d already broken free from. It thought he would stop running and Connor proved it wrong, he was not going to stop.

The walls closed in, darker, splashed with blood and firelight: he ignored it. He heard screaming, a woman, a woman grieving her husband and her son and her daughter: he ignored it. A girl, a little girl he didn’t know, sobbing with her silhouette at the wall: he ignored it.

Get away, get away, get away.

_You will not escape. You will give in. You will be **my** vessel!_

It wasn’t Nathaniel’s startled, bloodless corpse he ran past: it was the Fade.

It wasn’t Velanna’s shredded body propped against the wall: it was the Fade.

It wasn’t An’eth impaled on her own spears: it was the Fade.

It wasn’t Hassick’s eyes taken out with his own bolts: it was the Fade.

It wasn’t Kieran and Thomas, gutted with blood in their quiet mouths. It wasn’t Sorran’s red hair under her mother’s prone body. It wasn’t Valora and her granddaughter bound and burned. It wasn’t Vigil’s Keep spitting fire and black smoke to obscure the sky.

It sounded like, but couldn’t be, Evie who screamed before a wet rip cut the noise. Her dented, burnt, battered silverite shield fell into view from around the next corner and Connor stopped. He wasn’t supposed to stop, but he stopped. He would not go around that corner, there was no other path to follow, but he would not go that way.

“Hawke…” He breathed, saying the name again and well aware that it meant when he turned or dashed or did _anything_ , it would be Carver next. But he wouldn’t look at Evie and he wouldn’t look at Carver, even if it wasn’t real, even if it was just the Fade.

The cold came fast and it came through him, less the real sensation of skin and flesh and hair all bundled up with ice, more the idea, the concept, the _knowledge_ that he was suddenly rushed with cold that brought pain and made him gasp keenly. The bones that dragged through his hair, the frigid, blunt teeth that chattered against his ear.

_It creeps through you now, the knowledge, you know it will happen. You know it will be your fault. They day your magic consumes them, destroys them, and you will be all alone again._

The voice sounded like a woman’s, or something like a woman’s: faint and soft, sad and delicate. Not really a woman, maybe it had just seen far enough inside to catch a glimpse of gold eyes and black claws and twisted horns and-

_You will give in, you will **despair** , you will fall and forget and your darkness will be **my** hollow…_

Closing his eyes he could still see, because this was the Fade and nothing was real, so nothing could be blocked out by eyes that didn’t exist, couldn’t close, couldn’t obscure the awareness that was all he had of himself. His armour was an illusion, his hands an illusion, his scarred face an illusion. The only thing he had was himself, his frozen self, his cold, lonely, angry, _despairing self…_

_Lonely, looonnelly, always so **lonely** … despair, despaaiir… forget and be no more… they are dead, killed by you, poisoned by your careless hands, your careless, bloody, naïve hands…_

He was holding the Joining Chalice. It wasn’t real. The real one was in the Commander’s office, near his desk, a hallowed reminder of why he did not give the Joining willingly.

_Lonely hands, never to be held, **lonely** , cold and lied to, unwanted and lied to, so many years they lied to you…_

The passage way rumbled but didn’t disturb this corner. Connor knew why: two demons, not one. The one who had built this trap for the dreams of mages gathered together in one keep, the one who suffered for fear and terror and horror. The other who was here now, so cold, _so cold_ , that had followed him and followed him and tapered the horrors to its tastes and let the weak mage run the opposite way from his allies.

Fear demons, monstrous, terrifying.

Despair demons, heart-breaking, patient.

 _Despair… **despaaaiir**_ , _unwanted, unloved, unappreciated. Lied to, lonely, so lonely, so cold and forgotten and abandoned and neglected._

Connor looked at the chalice again, it’s silver body and griffons dancing around the wide belly, its handle thick and heavy in his gloved hands. Its lips were streaked with the black violence of the Joining, the corpses of dead Wardens and their families decayed and staggered around him. He saw Evie’s shield on the ground and told himself, reminded himself, that she had asked him for rose water.

As in she’d asked him again: recently. Just a few days ago. Because she’d used the last of the original bottle.

“She’s not a mage, she’s not here, she’s not dead.” He whispered, felt pain when those bones grabbed at his shoulder but he told it no: he was wearing silverite and thick wool, its fingers would not be able to pierce that, to press that, to hurt him through that. No. He didn’t care what it’s intentions were, it could not do that.

_She is-_

“Not a mage! Not here! And _not dead!_ ” He shouted, “And I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning in a wretched mood because you and your stupid friend won’t let me _sleep!_ I’ll make the oils she asked for, because she’s my friend, and she’s beautiful, and I know I can do a better job of it this time! And then I’ll go ahead and make lavender water and throw that in Hawke’s face, because he hates it, and I can blame it on you for not letting me _get a decent night’s sleep!_ ”

He ducked his head, turning fast, and flung the chalice full of hot rose water at the demon. It sent up ribbons of steam and the demon screamed in outrage and fear, Connor’s staff cutting through the cloud of smoke and decay left behind. He hit nothing but air, the demon startled away but certainly not dead.

He had a new way to run: back in the direction he’d come. It didn’t matter now what he did, he didn’t know how long the embrium would take to filter out of his blood and he wasn’t strong enough to face either demon. He could find the others and help, or he could run and waste time keeping himself as safe as he could.

Honestly, the likelihood that he could find his way back to where the other mages were without lyrium to enhance his abilities was slim.

“When I wake up-” so Connor took off running down the passage, past the bodies, away from the corpse of someone who was not in the fade and was not dead. “I’m going to tell Hawke he was right. I’m going to call him a dick. I’m going to let him gloat, and then we’ll go and get breakfast. I’m going to find roses. I-”

The floor opened up, deep veins of blackness leading who knew where, but Connor had time to kill and demons to keep away from: he jumped and told himself he would be fine. He hit the slope of something that didn’t exist, dug his imaginary heels into the cascading nothing, and slid safe and smooth down through the abyss. When his feet found grass he carried on at a run, following nothing but the springy sound of wet green fields of grass.

“I hope An’eth and Hassick come home soon. I need to go to Amaranthine and find a new mortar.”

He pulled his elbows in and swung his arms, finding a reasonable trot. He wished for a moon or stars or water or fireflies or _anything really_. But it was just the grass and the darkness and the quiet. He had never seen the Fade this dark before. Maybe this was what _normal_ dreams felt like?

“Mahanon will call me names when he realizes I didn’t help kill the Fear demon. I don’t know what a _shemlen-la-ladidida?_ What did he say? It’s not a good insult if you don’t know what it means.”

He carried on.

“I want to see Hawke because he was right about this. And I want to know when I can start calling him Carver, because he uses my name from time to time when he’s mad at me. I think that’s fair.”

And on.

“I should get a Mabari. No. Bad idea. I can’t even take care of a garden.”

And on.

“Carver. _Carver_. Such a weird name. Why would his parents do that to him? _Carver Hawke_ , it’s like naming a child _Thatcher Cat_ or _Baker Fish_. I thought _my_ family had problems.”

Maker this was getting _dull_. At least it wasn’t as bad as real running, _that_ was something Connor truly hated. Running from Skyhold to the Storm Coast had done more damage to Connor than anything the Darkspawn or the entire Western Approa- no, that was an unfair exaggeration. The Western Approach had been much, much worse than just running through the Frostbacks with Nathaniel.

“ _Enchanter come to me, Enchanter come to me, Enchanter come_ _to_ … Nope _,_ I don’t remember the words either. I bet Hawke does. Carver. He’s probably got the song book. _”_

Next time less embrium, more honey, obviously.

Connor actually didn’t expect it when he saw something form in the distance, or what he took to be the distance. He thought he’d wake up, he’d _hoped_ he would wake up, just open his eyes in his bed, possibly with Captain Maheron Lavellan standing over his bed ready to club Connor for being a useless and ungrateful Mage who had not wanted to tangle with the demon hovering over Vigil’s Keep.

Instead Connor began to advance on a campfire, and that made his heart fall a little bit. He was still in the Fade, the grass turning to dirt, turning to ash, the black void peeling away to deep streaks of navy and royal blue, a blanket of stars peppering the dark velvet. The black edges of the Maker’s despoiled seat were stretched across the sky, voiding the stars in places, but Connor had to look quite hard in order to find it.

It was a campfire on a burned, dirty landscape. Nothing green grew, there were shreds of dried wood and mangled trees, like a great fire had ripped across the land and scoured away all that had once been good.

The fire was not clear. It was bright, but it didn’t _look_ like fire, more like the memory of fire. The ash was not really ash, it was the _idea_ of something talc-like, grey, and that turned to smoke when stepped on. The sky was the sky, stained by the black city. The pointed body of a ragged tent was not really a tent, it didn’t touch the ground, its strings were taught but not pegged, the sleeping bodies inside immobile, frozen, not actually there.

Connor slowed, his staff in hand and his memory placing his dagger at his belt after forgetting it for so long, his water skin and supply belts adding weight to his steps. When he was only walking, he continued his approach, curious and confused by what was at the fire. Who was at the fireside.

“…Hawke?” In black britches and tattered Ferelden fur boots, a dirty tunic and the yellow hide of an arming doublet- but only the part that wound over the shoulders. He looked like he’d stripped off his armour, leather vambraces clutching his forearms and thick suspenders meant to carry the weight of his belts and metal skirt worn like a memory. Hawke was sitting at the fire with his elbows on his knees, dirty fingers together. He was filthy and worn down, his black hair combed with grime.

He moved and all of those details went away, moving just his head, and it took his eyes a few moments to reform so Connor could see him. Not Hawke- but- sort of?

“You’re too late, Templar.” Carver Hawke’s voice, in Carver Hawke’s blurry, almost there face. “I’ve already lost one sister: you won’t take the other on from me.”

The sword was a beaten, scratched, blunted shame of a weapon. It formed from the dream and found Hawke’s hands as he stood, and Connor held up his hands, staff tucked to his elbow.

“I’m no Templar, I’m a Grey Warden.” It didn’t feel like a demon. It didn’t seem like a demon. Connor had faced a demon that had worn Surana’s face during his Harrowing: the Hero of Ferelden had stood clear and obvious as the dead grey of the Fade. Hawke didn’t look like that, he barely looked like anything.

“Then you’re still _too late_.” Carver accused, but the aggression wilted out of him, drained, and when he dropped the sword it returned to the fireside where he had been sitting, though his hand did not place it there. “Come to the fire, you must be hungry and exhausted.”

Connor approached but when Carver didn’t sit he cautiously mimicked him, stepping close enough to the false-fire’s light to feel it spread across his face. Carver recognized him but didn’t react, just spoke to him like he hadn’t just mistaken Connor for a Templar.

“We’ll make it to Gwaren if we keep ahead of the hoard. You need to sleep.” Connor didn’t tell him that they were already asleep, unsure if he wanted to test the idea that occurred to him. If he’d run so far and so long without interference from the demons, if he’d found the edge of the Fear Demon’s domain and run through nothingness with only the embrium keeping him asleep, then what if he’d found another dreamer?

“Do you remember who I am?” He asked.

“Of course I do, Connor, don’t be a fool.” Carver looked like he was on the verge of exhausted tears, and shook his head when Connor motioned for him to sit again. “Don’t waste your strength on useless chatter.”

“What happened here? Why are you upset?”

“ _Bethany…_ ” The dreamer wailed, “It took her, it took _Bethany_ … I can’t feel her, I can’t _find_ her…”

Connor looked again at the desolation around him. Not fire, Blight. And the people in the tent, the women in the tent, not dead, just not filled in by the edges of the dream: sleeping women. His mother and his sister and- actually Connor didn’t know who the third one could be, not if Bethany was already dead, not unless the dream had decided that _all three_ -

“It killed her and we _left_ her- we _had to…_ ”

“Carver,” Connor stepped forward, taking the dreamer’s hand. “You need to wake up.” His eyes were bloodshot when they reformed and he shook his head, blurring the whole image.

“I’m so tired already…”

“Carver, this is not a good dream.” Connor hushed him. “My wards broke, Carver, I drank the embrium and I can’t wake up on my own until dawn.”

“What are you talking about…?”

“This is a _dream_ , Hawke.” Connor squeezed his hand, touching his arm and speaking faster now as the old mind trick was bound to work: once someone knew they were dreaming, they could wake up. “This is the Fade: you’re remembering the Blight but Hawke you need to _listen-_ I need your _help…_ ”

“This isn’t real?”

“ _I’m_ real! This is a dream but _I’m_ here, _please_ -”

“ _Connor-?_ ”

“Wake me up!” Connor felt the dream contract around them, felt the tent burn away and the landscape melt and buckle like wax. A great roar filled the air and over the horizon but within the scope of his awareness rose Vigil’s Keep, a dream fortress wrapped in fire and revealing their position at the very edge of the demon’s reach. Connor felt himself staring at the fortress as it began to _move towards them_ and pulled back the night-sky like an actual curtain, the streams of blue and black catching on her burning towers and revealing a red and yellow sky over the battle. “I can’t will myself out! I just need to wake up I don’t need to _get up_ \- _Hawke!_ ”

_I **found** you…_

Carver’s hands unravelled like candle smoke that swirled and dispelled. He saw it happening to himself and stumbled back, his eyes clearing with real awareness before-

_“CONNOR!”_

Hawke woke up and Connor felt everything he was turn to ice. Solid. Frigid. Painful. It seized the air in his lungs, stuck his eyes open, turned his hair brittle, his limbs swollen in unbearable pain. His breath turned white and the will that clutched and dragged through him told him he would stay that way, would stand this way, would suffer this way. He would surrender and he would despair.

 _Lonely, **lonely**_ , _and he will **forget** you now…_

He would _despair…_

* * *

 

Carver Hawke sat in his bed, in the dark, taking fast, shallow breaths. He was recovering from the nightmare that had shocked him awake in the middle of the night.

It could have been his mind grabbing the mage-talk from the evening and turning it into something grotesque.

Or that might really have been Guerrin talking to him through the Fade.

He wasn’t going to take the chance. Time moved strangely while you slept. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his breeches, grabbed a shirt, and left his room for the dark, quiet hall. The doors were dark except Nathaniel’s, which was also open: Velanna was asleep in her husband’s room and he’d chosen to stay awake and guard her, in case anything happened.

Guerrin’s door was closed but not locked, Carver considered the dream all the permission he needed.

The wards were broken. He knew they were because he couldn’t see them: he could see them when the Commander cast them in a dangerous place where the Veil was thin. He had seen them when his father or Marian or Bethany or Anders or Merrill or literally _any other mage he’d ever known_ had cast a sleeping ward over a campsite or sheltered room. Carver knew Guerrin wasn’t stupid or thoughtless so if he couldn’t see the wards then that meant they were broken.

He went straight to the bed, eyes swimming in the dark, grabbed the mage and shook him. He was laying on his back, warm and breathing but he didn’t stir. Carver made a fist and punched Connor Guerrin in the gut.

The mage recoiled with a broken, startled cry. It woke him the fuck up and Carver turned away, careful not to trip on the potted plants and vines littering the far side of the room. He reached up to find and light one of the lamps. When there was enough light to see by Carver went back to the bed, where Guerrin was sitting up with an arm over his bruised gut and his head bowed so far down his hair was hanging over his face. He was gasping. He was shaking.

“ _Thank you…”_ Maker protect them, it hadn’t been just a dream if that was the first thing Guerrin had to say about Carver waking him up with a punch.

“What are you doing?” Carver whispered, watching Guerrin start shoving down the covers of his bed, pulling his legs free and trying to stand- he couldn’t lift his head and almost dropped to the floor when Carver caught him instead. “Maker- you’re burning up.” His skin was _blistering_ hot.

“It’s the embrium…” Guerrin slurred, hanging listless on Carver’s arm as he tried to make his legs bear weight. He’d gone to bed in long white linens, and hooked one arm around Carver’s neck trying to pull himself up. “Don’t… let me fall back to sleep...”

“I won’t.” It turned into a standing hug. It was easier to keep Guerrin upright like that, Carver could hold on to him with both arms wrapped under his, the mage’s face pressed down hard to the crook of his neck. He was shaking. He was crying.

The image Carver had woken up with had been Connor, eyes open and mid-scream, freezing to solid ice before a great hand made of bones snatched him away. So if Guerrin wanted to cry then that was okay. And if Carver ended up holding him a bit tighter then that was okay too.

“…I didn’t know it was your dream.” He whispered after a few moments, one embrium-warmed hand holding the back of Carver’s head, fingers curling in his hair. “I was supposed to keep moving. Just- keep hidden after the wards broke. Wait for the draught to wear off and then I could will myself awake. I’m sorry…”

“As you should be,” Carver scolded him with no heat, no intention to actually berate him. “I told you not to do that again.”

“ _I’m sorry…”_ The hand in his hair stroked down, reaching back up to grasp and fall again, desperate for comfort. “I didn’t know it was your dream. I didn’t know… I didn’t mean to lead them to you, I—”

“Not that part,” He interrupted, “The _you almost getting killed by demons_ part.”

“ _I’m so sorry…”_ No, why did he keep saying that? Carver tried to untangle them, to get a look at him- but by the unfocused look in his weepy red eyes, he was almost asleep again until Carver shook him, breaking the hug to hold his arms.

“Stay with me, Guerrin.”

“I don’t want to go back…”

A door opened and footsteps came beating down the hall, Carver looked and saw Velanna slam her thin hand on the doorframe to keep from overshooting down the corridor. Her white hair was down and wild looking, a handful of white magefire fluttering between her caged fingers. Nathaniel came up behind her whispering something but Velanna wasn’t listening. She quashed the spell, hurried in to the room and berated Carver out of her way.

“ _You stupid boy.”_ She hissed, immediately flinging her thin arms around Guerrin’s neck and almost knocking them both over. Thankfully she let go right away, and somehow in some way Carver didn’t understand, Connor had maintained a tight, unflagging grip on Carver’s fingers. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again! You didn’t even take any of the lyrium, that was _reckless_ and _so stupid_ of you, I can’t-”

“Velanna, have we all not been through enough tonight?” Nathaniel crowed darkly from the door.

“ _We?_ ” Velanna hissed back, and Guerrin sank slowly to sit on his bed again, head down on one hand, the other still resolutely glued to Carver’s as he also took a seat. “I appreciate your concern, _vhenan,_ but you were not in the Fade, you did not see what this fool of a mage did.”

“What did he do?” Carver asked. All he remembered was a scream and the ice, the bones.

“He fought and killed a Despair Demon on his own.” Carver stared at her. He’d _what?_ “Do you know what those are?”

“I do.” He’d seen them during the Breach. They were _horrifying_.

“He lured it away from the rest of the battle, probably because he hadn’t taken any lyrium to help him in the Fade, and killed it once it was away from the stronger demon.”

“Are you serious?”

“Do you take me for the sort of person to spin a fantasy?” Velanna asked him shrewdly. Carver guessed not.

“Is the lyrium what’s got you so much more awake than he is?” Carver asked, noting the slack feeling around his hand and quickly getting his hand on Guerrin’s shoulder, shaking him hard enough to jostle him back from the edge of sleep. “Connor, where are your shoes? A walk out in the cold will wake you up.”

“The demons are dead,” Velanna announced, ignoring his question. “He’s safe to go back to sleep.”

“I’ll let him make that decision.” And then he shook Connor _again_. “Oi!”

“ _Don’t let me sleep…_ ”

Velanna spoke an elven oath, then marched over and investigated the pots and planters and dishes with all sorts of odd-smelling plants in them. Connor kept saying the light and air in his room were better than in the workshop, so the place was still full of herbs. Velanna plucked something from a dish of water and came back to the bed, giving Connor a touch at the cheek, then a deliberate clap to rouse him.

“This will keep you awake. Open.” Guerrin opened his mouth and she jammed whatever it was inside, explaining in the same breath that she had trained as a Keeper and knew what she was doing.

She wasn’t lying: Guerrin made a startled noise and his head came up properly, lips puckered around whatever it was she’d given him, a betrayed look pulling at his bloodshot and weary eyes. But when he tried to take it out, it was immediately clear his mouth wouldn’t open properly.

“What the fuck did you give him?” Carver demanded in his stead, although the mage’s question had probably beena _‘why’_.

“Spindleweed.” Velanna answered, and then let Nathaniel quickly escort her away.


	15. Rashvine Nonsense

One of the Vigil’s Mages died in the attack. Connor didn’t hear of it until morning.

Connor spent the rest of the night held on to by Hawke and refused to leave that comfort. He’d been trapped by his own potion, he’d almost been killed, and he’d almost put Hawke in danger: Connor let his arms tangle around his friend’s back and held on to him. Sleep tormented him, the embrium dragging him back down in the suffocating warmth as the night crept by, but he wore through it. The spindleweed in his mouth he hated at first for the blisters it opened up inside his cheek, but he ended up manipulating one of the spines under his tongue on purpose. The pain brought tears to his eyes, but it kept him awake.

Connor knew when the embrium wore off because he began to _freeze_. His teeth chattered, skin clammy, and he woke Carver up with his fussing and shaking. His mouth was swollen from the spindleweed and his hands shook too hard to speak properly in the predawn glow, and eventually Carver just grabbed his hands to make him stop trying, coaxed him to lay back down, smothered him in blankets and left to find Velanna.

“This is why you need an apprentice.” Evie scolded him gently when Hawke took too long to come back. She sat on the bed looking sleepless, and stroked Connor’s hair back like he was actually sick and not just suffering from the after-effects of his own medicines. “So that when the Apothecary is ill there is still someone to look after him. The other mages have woken up, _my kind friend_ , but one of them was not as fortunate. I am very sorry, Connor: Sergeant Geoffrey perished last night…”

Velanna had woken up for adrenaline’s sake, aided by the lyrium she’d taken. When the Fear Demon had been vanquished and Connor’s fight was noticed she’d left the Fade to find him: Hawke’s intervention had caused him to vanish from the dream without a trace and had caused a panic. Geoffrey had been overcome not by the creature that had prompted the mages to enter the Fade, but by the twisted entity of wrath and vengeance drawn by the anger he’d pulled out of himself to fuel his magic during the fight. Surana had killed Geoffrey in the Fade to stop him from becoming an abomination, Lavellan had awoken and killed him in the real world when his flesh began to burn and twist with the signs of imminent possession.

Evie laid down and Connor buried his face against her neck, breathing deeply of the scent of roses and old sweat. When Hawke came back with a simple brew of elfroot tea and a few drops of lyrium potion scraped together from Velanna’s slurred instructions, Connor thought he might be angry to find Evie in his place. Instead he was made to take the tea without comment, both his mouth and his shakes improving as he drank, and when Carver asked if he wanted them to stay, Connor nodded and welcomed Carver back to the bed.

He slept calmly and well into the next day. He noticed faint dreams suggesting to him a portion of the Fade that was quiet, almost empty. There was little about to distract from the calm, faint voices of mages hidden safely behind wards and hushing the ones around them: everything from the demons to the spirits had been chased off by the great fight.

“You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“It sounds wrong, why would a mother risk her daughter like that?”

“Ask him to let you read the letters. I know where they _are_ but it’s not like they’re mine to just show you, Evie.” A band of warmth around Connor’s chest tightened, something firm wrapped around his calve.

“I’m not going to steal his letters.” The scent of roses whispered. A heavy face pressed down on his shoulder, exhaling warmth. “You’re allowed to sleep as well, you know. He’s safe now.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” The face grunted. “I’m sick of sleeping. I want him to wake up so I can get out of bed.”

“Well _excuse me then…_ ” Connor groaned weakly between them, grimacing at the burning feeling in his dry mouth. Both wardens froze at his voice and he felt Hawke lift off of him, Evie’s arm and leg retreating and leaving cold bands on his body.

“How long have you been awake?” Evie asked. He groaned again, fighting with the unpleasant sensations scaring away the soft warmth from the bed. For Evie’s benefit the words he wanted came to him in Orlesian:

“ _Stop talking about my mother…_ ” He freed a hand from the bed and rubbed his scarred face, groaning.

“We will stop discussing her when she starts making sense, _cher_.” Evie softly scolded him in Trade. “May I read the strange letters Hawke says she has been sending you?”

“There’re on the desk,” Connor answered, and when the bed shifted to take her away he made himself roll over towards Hawke, eyes tightly shut as he tried to stretch and move his sore limbs. The arm that folded around him was comforting and smelled like split pine.

“Do I blame the demon or the potion for knocking the shit out of you?” Hawke asked.

“ _Both…_ ”

“Connor this one is new, do you want me to open it?” Evie’s voice called gently.

“Burn it.” He grunted.

“ _Cher_ …”

Connor signed ‘ _please’_ and remained tucked against Hawke’s warmth.

“You have not answered the one you received yesterday, she must have sent them only a day apart.”

“Fine.” Connor consented, face pressed to the soft fabric over Hawke’s chest. He wasn’t going to be able to enjoy this much longer, he wanted the warmth and closeness and the soft thump of another heartbeat against his skin. “Read it. Then burn it.”

“You’re in luck, it’s short. ‘ _Connor. I have dispatched Ser Perth to Amaranthine to help you escape. Find him in the city market. Signed, Mother.’”_ Connor’s eyes shot open, hands clenching Hawke’s shirt. “…I don’t know how I feel about her use of the word _escape_ -”

“ _I’m not going anywhere!_ ” He shouted, shoving himself upright and ignoring Hawke’s startled comment that he calm down. He sat upright and Maker Take Him, he shouted: “Someone died last night! The other mages all feel as bad or worse than I do! The Vigil’s barely got a working apothecary shop! We’re the last Wardens Surana’s got at the Keep! The Arlessa is cross-eyed and blind and won’t give me a straight answer or read a damned thing I send her! Sod Ser Perth! Sod Amaranthine! I’m not going _anywhere!_ ”

“Kindly do not sod Amaranthine, I’m fond of it.” A new, very calm voice filled the abrupt silence left by Connor’s shouting. Hawke flew off the bed at once. “But the rest of it I might be more inclined to agree with, especially the _as bad or worse_ part…”

“Warden Commander.” Evie said, and there was the sound of her moving to attention before Connor opened his eyes, slowly looking to the open door of his room.

Commander Surana looked exactly how Connor felt: tired, brittle, and missing the warmth of his bed. At his side and gazing up adoringly was the large, old, friendly mabari hound that usually never left his apartments, and the dog was more interested in trying to get the Commander to rub its head than whatever the people inside the room were up to. Surana’s robes looked fine and fresh, emerald green folded with bands of fine gold embroidery, but the rest of him did not: he was holding the doorway with his free hand, wide blue eyes bloodshot, fair hair brushed and bright.

He made an easy gesture for Evie to leave her tense stance, her hair wound up in tight knots across her scalp and pinned in place. Her hair like that was fine for wandering around the Keep while at leave but Connor could tell she wasn’t happy about having the Commander see her in her white linens and without shoes. Hawke was embarrassed as well, trapped with Connor’s potted plants and an herb-bearing drying rack behind him and the bed between him and the Archmage. It was Connor’s fault he looked like that, hands down and that uncomfortable twist on his mouth.

“Warden Guerrin.” Connor tried to get out of bed, he started fighting with the blankets and stopped when Surana cleared his throat softly with a dismissive wave. “Don’t. It’s not a good day and I won’t be here long. I have orders for you.”

 _Today?_ Connor didn’t say anything out loud but he was quite sure all three Wardens in the room put on the same face.

“In two days I want you to go to Amaranthine.” Surana told him, his face and voice pleading fatigue. “You will continue your new-found duties as apothecary, but will approach the College of Herbalists for an assistant. I expect it to take no more than two weeks for you to find someone you’re able to comfortably work with: another mage, a vashoth, an Ander, I don’t care who it is as long as they’re capable. Garevel will give you all the information about payment and accommodations- see him before you leave.”

“Bright and early, Commander.” Connor answered. “This… is a little abrupt.” Surana closed his eyes, lifting his arm so his elbow was braced on the doorway. He was _incredibly tired?_

“I hadn’t realized how much I miss having fresh herbs and poultices around the keep. We shouldn’t have to put up with dry elfroot from Amaranthine after an event like last night.” He explained, pinching the bridge of his long nose and surprising Connor when he realized the Hero of Ferelden was wearing _two robes_ , and then a third layer below that. He wasn’t _still_ under the effects of the embrium, was he? “I may respect Formari Master Owain, but not enough to continue running Vigil’s Keep on week old medicines… Maker, how much of that powder did you _give_ me?” Connor felt himself go flush.

“Quarter teaspoon.” He croaked.

“That’s what I _thought_ …” Surana answered, rubbing his eyes and sounding like he was ready to fall asleep on his feet. “I’m used to it being a full teaspoon but yours is obviously stronger… At ease, Wardens, that’s all I came down here to say. Connor, find an assistant in Amaranthine, and as soon as Teyrn Cousland is gone I’m going to give Owain _hell_.”

Surana left shortly after that, the Mabari more leading than following the Archmage through the keep.

Connor was shocked to realize he wasn’t allowed out of bed. He tried to get up and Hawke barked at him, told him to stay put. He tried again when Hawke was out of the room fetching something to eat and Evie forcibly covered him in blankets again.

“But the other mages need-”

“ _You to sleep!”_

Connor hadn’t realized how many little requests and orders he dealt with in a day until Nathaniel came into his room by mid-afternoon demanding the key to his workshop. He looked harried and fed-up.

“What’s going on?”

“Half the damn Keep’s forgotten you’re a bloody mage who went through the same thing as every other damned magic user in here.” Nathaniel growled, snatching the key up from where Connor had left it on his desk. “ _‘But I need elfroot_ ’, _‘but he made a balm for us’_ , _‘but the horses need their medicine_ ’ sodding idiots.”

“You mean the cooling balm?” Connor brightened at the prompt. “That’s ready on the counter by the window. The stablemaster said-”

“ _Go back to sleep!_ ” Howe scolded, and Hawke threatened to start pulling the leaves off Connor’s plants if he didn’t keep his feet _in the bed_.

“The embrium’s worn off now, I’m fine.”

“Sit.” Hawke ordered.

“But I need to pack for Amaranthine!”

“No.” Evie denied.

“What’s gotten in to you two!?”

He was finally allowed up at the evening bell, able to bathe and put on fresh clothes and go see his worksh-

“ _No!_ ” His two Warden nursemaids grabbed him each by an arm and dragged Connor to the mess-hall, ignoring his outright demands that they put him _down!_

“Alright, I worried you.” He said from in front of a plate of food he’d dished for himself, his nursemaids sitting across the table from him and _still fussing_. “And I’m sorry. Hawke, you were right, I shouldn’t have slept alone and I’m sorry. Evie, last night was very scary and I’m very sorry. I kept embarrassing you both this morning by being very clingy, and _I am sorry_.” But they needed to both just _calm down…_

“You killed a powerful demon on your own last night,” Evie said, scooping buttered peas on to her plate and offering the dish to Hawke, who took it amicably from her. “You are not going to work past midnight tonight boiling elfroot for the keep. If you are truly so very sorry, _cher_ , then you will finish having a proper day of rest before the funeral.”

“And if you’re not going to eat that, I will.” Connor defensively pulled his plate closer, away from Hawke.

That night the Vigil stood true to its name. Polished armour, sharpened weapons, full regalia and honoured silence at the pyre for the mage who’d died. The revered mother who ministered to the keep said a prayer for the Sergeant who’d died and let his spirit fly to the Maker: Geoffery’s body was shrouded in fine muslin to hide the damage of his near-possession and death. Surana wore a gold robe over fine Fereldan leathers to show his loyalty to the Arling the mage had served as a member of the Silver Order, Kieran dutiful and quiet at his side as the stars swallowed the smoke and ashes.

Connor stood between Hawke and Genevieve, Oghren and Nathaniel making up the rest of the short line of Wardens present for the funeral. Connor watched the burning in the cold autumn night and found himself wondering if Circle Apprentices who’d failed their Harrowings had been given the same honours. He wondered if an Apprentice girl named Amara, so talented, so young, had been properly burned. He did not wonder what the demon may have done to her round face. Her red hair.

It didn’t surprise him that Geoffery had never been offered the joining by Surana. The Archmage didn’t speak at the funeral and Connor struggled to believe he could have trusted an unharrowed, self-taught apostate mage to take in the taint. He seemed grim, but not shaken by the tragedy.

Connor’s thoughts were unkind and he took them to bed with him, alone.

The next day he forced himself to visit the Warden Commander, because they’d both been too out of it after the attack and embrium for Connor to explain why he’d been incensed to the point of shouting. As it had been on every occasion previously, the Commander’s apartments had their doors wide open when he mustered up the courage to actually go and speak to him.

“Oh- I can come back.”

But unlike the other visits, Surana wasn’t in his office: he was sitting in the main salon across a chess-board from his son. Kieran, for absolutely no reason, was on his knees with his arms on the table and chin resting on the backs of his fingers. He had a perfectly good chair behind him but was acting as if staring at the pieces from their own level would help him win the game. Both sides of the board were missing several tokens, but the Warden Commander was slowly turning his son’s white queen over and over again in one hand.

“If it’s an issue I can settle from this chair, Warden, then it doesn’t have to wait.” Surana told him gently, eyes watching the board as Kieran reached for one piece, flinched, went for another, and then put his hand down again with a huff.

Connor crept very cautiously in to the room, alerting the two mabari by the fireplace- the young one stood and started wagging its stumpy tail at Connor, the other lifted its head just for a moment before grunting, putting its head down again, and flopping over to lay on its back.

“It’s about my assignment to Amaranthine, sir, and the other issue you and I have spoken about.” Connor came close enough to hold out both of his mother’s letters, distracting Surana from the game as he looked Connor’s way and accepted them.

Kieran did something quickly and very quietly.

“Put my mage back.” Surana said without missing a beat, taking the two letters and flipping from one to the other, Garevel had stamped both with their arrival date at the Vigil. Kieran pursed his lips very tightly and then set the black mage back on its square, a white templar piece was staring at it from the next block on the board. He’d tried to switch them. “Your mother tries that same trick and I keep telling you both: it doesn’t work on someone who knows where all of their pieces are.”

“But what if you’ve forgotten one?” The boy argued, his voice grumpy and miserable.

“I never forget, and I never misplace them either.” Surana opened the older, longer letter and read it quickly, face betraying nothing as he folded the paper back up and read the other, the one Evie had read out-loud. This time he did react: both his pale brows shot up at the short, bold statement. _Escape._

“I’m sorry, Commander.” Because this was Connor’s family, this was Connor’s somehow addled mother.

“I was quite certain Bouclier and Hawke would go with you to Amaranthine anyways what with how close you three have grown.” Surana’s voice was level and dry. He folded the letters, replaced them in their proper envelopes, and handed them back. “But now I’d like to make sure you take them. I’ll send word to Bann Talbind to keep a warry eye open for Knights of Redcliffe around his market. I trust you not to run off, Connor, but I’d rather not deal with a forced escape either.” Meaning an abduction.

“I pray they wouldn’t be stupid enough for that, Commander.” Connor murmured, unsettled and ashamed. “I won’t seek him out, I’ve no business with him.”

“Your business is your business, Warden. Thank you for keeping me informed.” The Archmage then leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and looked down across the board at the struggling boy. “This would be much _easier_ if your stomach didn’t hurt, wouldn’t it?”

“No.” Kieran said, but it sounded exactly like _‘yes’_ for some reason.

“Do- you need anything from me?” Connor stupidly asked the most powerful mage in Ferelden who was also an accomplished spirit healer if he needed Connor to make his son a cup of tea. It hadn’t felt as stupid before he said it, but _immediately afterwards_ it was-

“Oh no, he can suffer with this.” Surana answered in a breezy voice, Kieran groaning softly and knocking his head gently on the edge of the chess board. “It’s the price he and young Ser Thomas can pay for devouring an entire pot of honey together.”

“I’m amazed Mistress Felsi let them get away with that.” Connor marvelled.

Kieran mustered his strength, quickly moved one of his pieces to a random spot on the board, and then quickly and firmly put his head back down facing away from Connor. He should not have picked up on that little detail, but he did, and so did the Commander.

Surana’s easy smile turned to dark parental suspicion.

Connor felt horror grab him and spluttered, _“Good day, Commander, good day, young master._ ” And hurried out of the room. And then he hurried down through the keep. And he hurried to-

“ _Why!?_ Why? _Why would anyone do this…_ ”

His workshop had been ripped apart. Cupboards wide open, herb scraps on the floor, jars missing their tops, glassware in the sink. Someone, someone named Kieran, had made off with the entire pot of honey, but only after accidentally sticking his hand in the lard and proceeding to smear that everywhere first. But the children didn’t explain everything: the honey had been on the counter as one of three identical jars, there was absolutely no reason for them to touch anything else. Or open anything else. Or go through anything else.

Half a wooden jar of cooling balm had been left out after someone had used it and brought it back. His cauldron was full of elfroot and embrium petals, which was fine, but also _rashvine_ leaves and that was _not fine_ that was the _opposite of fine_ that was ‘ _someone in the Vigil is going to piss blood tonight’_ levels of _not fine_. Someone else, hopefully also not Kieran, had used a hammer and a rolling pin in place of Connor’s missing mortar and there were _hammer marks on his newly finished table._ Why were there blood lotus leaves _on the floor?_

Angry and nearly in tears, Connor went to the library to ask an important question. He followed the answer to the stables where he was given further clarification, and then found Nathaniel Howe trying to show his queasy-looking nephew Thomas the proper way to hold a knife for fighting. Charming.

“Warden Howe.” Voice shaking and the sour hurt of betrayal almost making his composure fall. “A moment of your most precious and valuable time.”

“Well _that_ doesn’t sound good.”

He took Howe back to the workshop, gave him a bucket and a rag, and made him promise to never ever ever _ever_ leave Connor’s workshop open to the public again. Nathaniel, who had the decency to look shocked and humbled by the carnage, helped him get to work.

“Is… Is this meant to have teeth marks in it?”

“That’s rashvine jelly. I’m not helping the person who comes to me with those symptoms.”

“This is an awful lot of deathroot for one little workshop.”

“It’s for the horses, supposedly.”

“Look I’m sorry, I am, and I’m going to help clean it all up I swear. But- but what in the Maker’s Glory is that on the _ceiling?_ ” Don’t ask him! Connor didn’t want to know! Connor just wanted it _cleaned up!_

The exterior door from the workshop out near the Keep’s vegetable garden slammed open and shut, feet and belts jangling loudly before Warden An’eth and Warden Hassick, road-weary and frantic, nearly fell over each other into the workshop. Connor looked up from where he’d been angrily dousing his spatulas in vinegar trying to get the stuck-on lotus vines off the smooth heads, startled by the hunter and the marksman. Nathaniel was struggling to meticulously separate every _single_ mixed up and mis-placed herb and root and flower gathered up from the counters and floor, and had no time for the junior Wardens.

“Guerrin, explain again how I’m supposed to tell the blood lotus from rashvi- _ah fuck! **Fuck!** Nevermind!”_ Connor’s mentor figured it out himself so Connor ignored him, he was still too angry for all of this.

“Are you two alright?” He made himself ask, because the two of them looked harried.

“ _Sylaise’s blessing,_ we thought it was _you_.” An’eth panted, putting her hands on her knees, head down with relief.

“No we didn’t-” Hassick blundered, his red skin flushed brightly from the run. His tall form wilted with visible relief and Connor didn’t know if he was supposed to be touched or offended by the fuss. “I did. She didn’t. Maker, we heard the news when we reached the market. We were only gone a few days- what happened?” What happened to the dead mage?

Connor sat them down and told them, drawing cold water and mixing a few purifying drops of elfroot and- well, he didn’t have honey, so none of that. The Wardens drank deeply from clean mason jars and calmed down as Geoffrey’s death was explained to them.

“Go take your baths and get some rest,” He told them. “Hassick, the Revered Mother has made herself available for the next three days to anyone who seeks the Maker’s guidance. An’eth, I’m certain Mistress Velanna will be able to give you better comfort.”

“Damn straight.” Howe chimed in from his tedium. “Or you two could lend a hand with this mess.”

“I was going to ask- what _is that_ on the ceiling?”

“The kennelmaster played a joke on me.” Connor answered flatly, burying his hurt because he had more people to deal with now and none of them had personally had a deliberate hand in destroying his workshop. “And then the stablemaster joined him. Halla were involved at some point.”

“I might _possibly_ have let a bunch of people who know nothing about laboratories have free reign of Guerrin’s workshop while he was resting yesterday.” Nathaniel admitted, and Connor thought that was very big of him. “Maybe.”

“I’ll clean up and come help.” An’eth offered quietly.

“I’d like to see the Revered Mother first, but Warden Athras and I brought back as much as our saddlebags could carry from the woodlands north of the Vigil. I’ll help you go through it all.” Connor would appreciate that.

Several hours and a dozen bundles each of half a dozen types of herbs later, even Connor was sick of the plant matter overwhelming his life.

“There’s no way I’m going to get through everything before tomorrow _morning_.” He groaned. He’d given up trying to pickle, brine, boil, roast, or even hack up most of it. He was just bundling and tying now, wanting to get as much of it ready to sit and _dry_ as he could. Snowdrops, thankfully, didn’t lose their potency when hung from their stems, and this would hopefully be enough to carry the Vigil through to spring. Unless of course every single woman in the Vigil gave birth at once, in which case it would last maybe a week.

“Have you considered hiring an assistant?” Howe quipped, still helping after the initial cleaning job because he said it had felt wrong to just up and leave after half a valley’s worth of grasses and vines and leaves and flowers had been dumped from two overstuffed saddlebags. Connor wanted to throw rashvine at him but abstained.

“Some of these herbs need to be used fresh.” Velanna, who had come looking for her husband an hour ago and then decided Hassick didn’t know how to de-spine spindleweed properly, spoke from her place over a basket of hairy white barbs Connor intended to soak for their poison. “I’m not suggesting I’ll do all of them. But I might do some.”

“You and Mistress Valora I trust to do things better than I can anyways. Just please, for the love of Andraste, don’t let the _children_ in here again.”

Howe’s wife wore a very faint smile and continued her delicate, clever work. Unfortunately, she also went on to tell a very detailed, very embellished, very _that’s not what happened_ rendition of Connor’s fight with the Despair Demon in the Fade.

“But I don’t even _know_ that kind of magic!” He railed after having enough of her very wrong version of things!

“In the Beyond you do not need to _know_ a spell, merely desire its effect.” Velanna told him shrewdly, scolding him for interrupting. “Maybe you didn’t cast that spell, but its effect made it into what I saw you do.” But it wasn’t what _happened!_

Connor had to abandon the argument when Oghren came and pried him from his work, forcing him to surrender the workshop key to Velanna, who promised not to abuse the space the way her husband had. He was taken to see Garevel and received a detailed breakdown of what he could offer an assistant or apprentice as far as room, board, allowances, and advancements. He and two companions were to stay at Bann Talbind of Amaranthine City’s estate, and Connor was presented with the documents saying so.

His assistant, his mission. There were ten sovereigns from the Vigil for anything in Amaranthine City Connor found and felt he’d need for the workshop, plus his pay which Connor withdrew a good chunk of for himself. It was a little bit scary carrying so much money around with him…

“Could you also… perhaps… mix a bit more of the dried herbs for that tea before you leave? It’s quite good for stress headaches. Many thanks, Warden.” Mint, lavender, elfroot, honey. The Seneschal was very upset when Connor told him his honey had been stolen by someone, but he didn’t go so far as to say _‘Kieran Surana is a spoiled little thief’_ so he was able to leave without any awkward silences.

After dinner Connor was ragged and hadn’t even packed yet. He trudged past Hawke’s door and found it closed for once, passing his own and peering into Evie’s chamber. She was sitting and quietly talking to An’eth. He heard the elven woman say _“He seems very kind”_ before he crept away as quietly as he could to avoid disturbing them, going to his own room where he tried to pack.

Tried.

Ugh.

He finished and fell in to bed, telling himself he wasn’t disappointed about not having really seen either Carver or Evie all day. He was used to not seeing either of them for weeks at a time. One day was fine. He was fine.

This was _fine._


	16. The Formari Guildsman

Connor, Evie, and Carver Hawke rode through a rainy autumn day to Amaranthine. They arrived in the beating heart of Amaranthine Arling with a cold chill soaked through them, but the warm, fire lit hall of Bann Talbind welcomed the wardens once they climbed through the noisy afternoon market. The Bann was a young man with thick black hair and a red doublet cut with gold ribbons, excited to have Wardens settled in his estate at the top of the city. The house was built into the high grey granite walls that protected Amaranthine from both land and sea.

“I only received the Arl’s missive yesterday, but I made your task known to the College of Herbalists this morning.” Bann Talbind met with them briefly as they entered the warm space, servants handing the Wardens warm towels for their hands and faces, sweeping wet saddlebags away like the horses who had been whisked off to the Bann’s stables for feeding and brushing. “They have not responded but I expect to hear back by tomorrow. Please, do make yourselves comfortable, the weather has not been fine and you must be cold. My Seneschal will see to your every whim!”

The Wardens were given a fine adjoined suite with several bedrooms off a central salon, a typical layout for visiting families and companies. Neither Connor nor Evie knew very much about the Banns of Amaranthine except what they’d seen at the tournament weeks ago. Hawke was no expert, but Talbind he knew:

“His family took over the city after all that nonsense during the Thaw.” He explained. “When Surana took the Arling the Banns went a bit mad for a few months before being brought to heel by him. The old Bann Esmereld vanished and that young man upstairs impressed the Commander by fighting for the city’s people during a darkspawn attack. I was still ages away from the Order in Kirkwall so it’s not like I was there, but Nathaniel sings Talbind’s high praises all the time.”

“A Darkspawn attack,” Connor asked, “Or _the_ Darkspawn attack?” The invasion that had almost destroyed Vigil’s Keep and Amaranthine City in one fell swoop.

“ _The_. Definitely _the_.”

The next day it was still raining and there was no immediate word back from the Herbalists, but it didn’t make sense to stay cooped up inside. The Bann put absolutely no restrictions on them except a very earnest and indulgent request that they take supper with him and regale him with stories of fighting Darkspawn and Dragons and Demons, oh my.

“Lucky for us, you’ve killed all three, Guerrin.” Hawke ribbed him as they left for the market that morning.

“For the last time: I did not _kill_ the dragon!” He’d hurt it, not finished it!

Connor walked with a blue quilted cowl over his head in the rain, the garment buckled to his warden armour so even if it slipped down it wouldn’t fall off and get lost. It kept him dry enough, his staff in one hand helping make sure he didn’t slip on the slick stone steps or, once they reached the market district, slip on anything _else_ that was underfoot and wet with rain. Hawke took a deep breath and said it smelled like home, Evie complained that it was just wet dog.

Rain was no barrier to commerce. Dogs and children ran between the wet rows of dripping stalls, orange and yellow and indigo awnings stretched taught to keep wares dry enough for sale. Hawke and Evie admired a knife-seller’s wares for several minutes, practically cooing over the sharp steel and finely hammered edges. He was embarrassed when they called him over to join them, leaving the fruit vendor behind and quickly sandwiched between two armoured Wardens who were beaming about something.

“Wouldn’t this be more useful for you?” He’d expected a joke about a dagger versus a staff, but was surprised when he looked down at a fine steel cleaver instead. “You have one at the Vigil, but it’s already beginning to wear.”

“That one’s made of iron. I got it because it was cheap.” Iron with a wooden handle that had started to split when Connor developed the bad habit of using it to break open seed pods.

What followed was a five-minute spiel from the merchant about where his steel came from and how it was hammered just so and like this, how it wouldn’t rust and he would put his name to the oath that if the handle split then he was a liar and a shame to his forefathers. He boasted about the inlaid silverite and told Connor some nonsense about the Dalish crafters of the Brecilian forest and it was a very lavish performance. He started chopping up twigs and bones to show he was no liar, no serrah, not he. He, lie to a Grey Warden? To _three_ Grey Wardens? Mercy of the Maker’s Bride that would be no way to live if he, Master Something of Somesuch in the Bannorn of Someone, should be such a scoundrel.

Unfortunately, it was in fact a very nice cleaver.

Connor hoped he could explain away the horrible burning he felt under his clothes as a product of the rain when Hawke started haggling for it, but there was no saving him when Evie traded the coins in her hand over to the merchant, and then handed the wrapped blade to Connor.

He was thoroughly relieved when Hawke noticed a print shop and announced how under absolutely no circumstances was he going to go inside, marching resolutely off down the lane. Velanna had put in her orders but books took weeks or months to copy and produce, so the Vigil didn’t yet have any new titles. Evie pressed ten silvers into Connor’s unwilling hands but he was quick to leave them this time and duck into the shop.

Carver didn’t actually give a damn what his books were about, except for a few preferred titles: epics like Ride of the Chevaliers or the Tale of the Champion, or any of Varric Tethras’ serial novels. Carver cared what his books looked like, how they were made, what they felt like in his hands. Connor hunted for about, oh, maybe ten minutes before ‘ _aha!_ ’ing gently: a book of Antivan stage plays bound in a gold and violet leather cover in good condition, embellished with crows, roses, and daggers. It was written in Trade with good ink, none of the pages were missing or falling out, and it included four comedies, four romances, and two tragedies.

He was bad at haggling and paid almost the stated price, but did a better job and got the ratty, tattered, stained, clearly-once-loved handbook on preserving herbal reagents for the price of a turnip dinner: two bits. Connor was ready to leave the shop and find his friends again when he spotted a title on aromatics and soaps and felt a resentful urge to stop and look at it. He didn’t want to deal with the book dealer again. He didn’t want to.

The cover was stitched with lavender petals and the first chapter was on roses. Connor said sod it and bought it.

Someone blundered straight into him as he was exiting the shop. It felt intentional and they were gone immediately, leaving the mage convinced he’d been robbed in the rain by a smiling thief. But his purse was still in its place and he had most of the gold from Vigil’s Keep scattered in pockets and pouches on his person anyways. His cleaver was in its satchel with the books, all of them protected by a flap of cured leather. He was missing nothing.

In fact he’d gained something: a rumpled snatch of parchment he only noticed stuck in his belt when he found Evie encouraging Hawke to haggle for their lunch. Carver Hawke seemed to take too much enjoyment in arguing down the prices of things, and Connor read the note before rejoining them.

_‘There are ten Knights of Redcliffe in Amaranthine. They have removed their armour but retained other signs of office. If you are true then check the vambraces of anyone who approaches you. If you are not, then watch your back for me._

_-Z.’_

Connor was immediately hurt by the threat. It was one thing for Zevran to be in Amaranthine keeping an eye on things, it was another for him to accuse Connor of wanting to desert. Connor had been surprised that Surana would leave it to just Hawke and Evie to watch over him- and then he went a bit further and wondered what Surana may have told his friends before leaving the Vigil… maybe they were watching him too.

Hawke triumphantly presented him with a heavy meat-pie soaked with gravy and beer-glazed onions, and Evie was half-way through hers in the misting rain. Connor handed over the note from Zevran without comment, hoping the warm food would make him feel better as it filled his mouth.

They both took news of the knights the same way Connor thought they might if he’d mentions demons. They became grim, which meant they were worried, and Connor wondered if that meant they’d hold him close agai-

“What was that weird face?” Hawke grunted and Connor stuffed the entire bottom half of his lunch into his mouth rather than answer. He hoped he choked to death for such an embarrassing, presumptive thought. They- didn’t owe him comfort!

As the rain and mood grew heavier the Wardens made their way to the Formari Guildsmen. The square building had its Circle pennants hanging outside still, two members of the city militia sheltered by an awning of blue fabric that kept them reasonably dry as they stood guard. Connor made both Hawke and Evie promise not to buy _him_ anything inside and to remember that the price of Formari enchantments had more than tripled since the mage rebellion.

“It’s expensive but usually worth it.” Evie tried to tell him but no, no it wasn’t. Connor had bought a staff from these people and seen what they charged Garevel for the Vigil’s medicines. For the amount of gold a paragon’s lustre stone had almost cost him Connor demanded the staff attached to it be cast from solid gold and turn everything it touched into even _more_ gold. It should turn rain water in to diamonds. It should make stale bread fresh again. No staff in Ferelden was worth fifty sodding sovereigns.

Inside the hall the air smelled like sandalwood. The floor was made of polished slabs of Amaranthine granite, and wide tables stretched down two columns from the main door to the back of the hall. There were several soft-spoken, empty-eyed Formari tranquil standing idle and ready to serve, a few of them engaged with a handful of customers already looking over the wares. Each former mage was dressed in the same set of deep warden blue robes with white aprons, wore the same blank, idle expression, had the same starburst brand burnt on to their forehead. Connor put someone who had died a long time ago out of his thoughts as he looked around.

Laid out on their tables and stacking the shelves behind them were the wares. Glittering runes, bottled potions, boxes of prepared herbs with specific purposes: one for fever, one for coughs, another for labouring pains, and so on. Books on magic, healing, crafting, the Fade, on interpreting dreams, on how to detect magical talent in young children, how to track magical lineage through bloodlines. There were talismans and rings, daggers and bangles, vambraces and tunics all woven with magical markings. Evie had wanted to come and see what was available, Connor wanted to know if any of the herbs or compounds for sale were actually worth the price being asked of them.

“Why are these two each different prices?” Connor asked the silent, vacant-eyed tranquil standing at the table of reagents, gesturing to two round-bottom flasks filled with clear concentrator agent. They looked no different but the marked number of silvers was significantly less on one. Same label, but different compounder’s mark on the corks.

“The solution on the left was produced by the Formari Guildmaster.” The woman told him in slow, even breaths. “Its exceptional quality and clarity guarantees a finer finished product, provided the chemist or apothecary practices proper care and use of the ingredient.”

“And on the right?” This wasn’t the price the solution had gone for the last time Connor was here, they’d knocked at least five silvers off of it but it looked exactly as it should have. It didn’t even have anything floating in it when Connor held it to the light, and when he shook it there was no residue clinging to the sides of the bottle. Just a few drops would be enough for a full batch of almost anything.

“The solution which you are holding was produced by a Second Level Compounder.” Was the toneless answer. “Although the product appears to be of similar quality, the Formari Guildsmen of Amaranthine take exceptional care in the production of our wares. The Compounder placed the saline solution into the pot before poaching the wyvern scales.” Now, Connor was not _good_ at making things from such expensive and rare ingredients as wyvern scales, but he still knew it didn’t make a single difference when those two steps took place in relation to each other. The mark down was just the Formari being Formari and Connor was quick to take advantage of it by purchasing two bottles, admiring the compounder’s seal for a moment so he would be able to recognize it if he saw any other marked down reagents.

He looked up through the empty space the Formari tending to him had left so she could find a second bottle of the solution, and his heart stopped.

It was just another Tranquil. Another former, failed mage. He was wearing the same robes as the others but his apron was stained because he was a Compounder, not a salesperson, and he was carrying a wooden case filled with clinking bottles.

He was elven. An elven Tranquil. Connor was being oversensitive. The Compounder was an elven Tranquil with the Chantry sun burned in to his forehead, making his tea-stained red skin glisten as he bent soundlessly down with the crate and began replenishing the table. It was the same Compounder who’d made the vial in Connor’s hand, or at least he was delivering more from that person’s work station because they all had the same heavily styled _J_ artisan’s mark.

Connor was staring and he knew it and he couldn’t make himself stop, so he made himself speak:

“Compounder, do you hail from Amaranthine?” The Formari didn’t answer him, his dusky hands simply withdrew bottle after bottle with thin fingers, setting them down gently. Connor reached out and touched his fingers to the table right where he tried putting down the next set. It made the Compounder stop and look at him. His eyes were green, vacant, but green. Haha. An elven tranquil with dark skin and green eyes and oh no this was not possible Connor could not handle this it was not _real_.

“That is a personal question, Grey Warden, unsuited for the business conducted in the front room.” The Formari told him, voice flat. Voice _familiar_. The Formari was not looking at _him_ , he was looking at Connor’s armour, his pauldron, his staff.

“That is very true, but I still very much desire to know your answer.” Connor’s voice shook and the Formari looked at him. Blank. Disengaged. Tranquil.

“I was once an Apprentice in the Ferelden Circle of Magi.” Until he had been made Tranquil in nine-thirty-six, Dragon, only a few months before First Enchanter Irving died in his sleep. “Before being taken to the Circle, I was brought up in the city of Gwaren. I followed several remaining members of the Circle’s Tranquil to Amaranthine when the Hero of Ferelden offered protection during the outbreak of the Rebellion.”

No he had _died_ in the Rebellion, he’d been run through with a Templar blade and Connor had fled the Circle. Connor had left his dead friend behind in one of the Circle courtyards, and then minutes later left his mentor to die on the pebbled beach as he stole a boat and tried to row himself and several younger apprentices across the lake to safety. The Templars had fallen upon them as soon as they made land. Connor had arrived in Redcliffe _alone_.

Connor had one hand over his mouth, keeping the flood of words inside. His eyes were burning, breaths shallow and wheezing, and this could not be real but it was. The Formari went back to unloading his potions on to the table, but when he finished he gave a visible hesitation instead of just cutting the conversation off and walking away.

“It is good that your escape from the tower was successful.” The Tranquil finally said, his voice airy and disconnected from the words he was actually saying. “I had assumed the worst after your mentor and the apprentices were reported dead. Seeing you again is unexpectedly pleasant.”

“Jylan _I’m sorry…”_ Connor finally blurted out, dropping his eyes in shame as the guilt broke over him like a wave. “I should have stayed- I should have tried to reach you-! _Maker_ , I thought you were dead!”

“That would have been unfortunate.” Jylan- _Jylan_ said. “I did not expect the Templars to harm one of the Tranquil, I meant only to distract them and facilitate your escape.” Connor stared at him in _horror_.

“You- you saw me?” Connor had been hiding- had been _trying to hide_ and reach the storeroom before attempting the flight across the lake. “You _jumped out?_ How in the Maker’s name did you survive that and end up _here?”_ Jylan nodded, continuing his explanation in even breaths.

“I was aided by an officer who recognized me as Tranquil, although I no longer recall how long the recovery lasted. When the Templars left Kinloch hold the Tranquil were abandoned as non-entities. Some stayed with the Templar Order and I do not know what became of them. Others went to Redcliffe and the assumption is that they perished on the way. Formari Master Owain and I chose to come to Amaranthine to serve the Hero of Ferelden, and when more of us arrived the Arl granted Owain the title of Guildmaster and established this hall for us.” Connor nodded along as Jylan spoke, shaking tears loose, trying to show he understood the story being told to him.

“And you live well here?” He asked.

“I live here.”

“But you live _well_?” Connor asked, harder this time. “You’re looked after, receive pay for your work, have time for yourself?”

Jylan stood there and looked at him. He had no expression, his tea-coloured ears didn’t move, green eyes stationary as he didn’t feel the urge to swing them around or rub his black hair as he thought. Those tangled, almost-blue tresses were the only thing about his appearance the Rite of Tranquility had not changed: Jylan was tranquil, his hair was as wild as ever.

“It is the life I lived in the Circle.” He said after a monumental silence.

“ _That’s not what I asked!_ ” But if it was just like the Circle then that was still an answer: no, he was not given personal funds. No, he was not given more than perhaps an hour or two a day for meals and his own needs.

“Grey Warden, I have the solutions you purchased ready for you.” Another monotone voice interrupted before Connor or his long-lost friend could say another word more. Hawke and Evie were hovering not far away, but remaining silent and out of the conversation. Connor acknowledged his purchases with a brief look, the coins already having left his hands several minutes ago, and looked back at Jylan.

“Is this your artisan’s mark?” He demanded, showing Jylan the burnt symbol on the cork.

“It is.”

“You’re a Second Level Compounder out of how many levels?”

“Three.”

“If I offered you a job at Vigil’s Keep, would you take it?” The question caused Jylan to fall in to another deep silence, the Tranquil version of shocked.

“Compounder Ansera, the reagents in your pot are burning.” A voice from behind them in the workshop hidden called out.

“You would work with me to keep the Vigil stocked and ready for her Wardens.” Connor rushed to explain. “The pay is modest, the food is _excellent_ , and if anyone calls you a dirty name I’ll set them on fire.”

“Grey Warden, this conversation is inappropriate for the front hall.” The Formari Connor had dealt with earlier announced in a flat voice.

“That is not your temperament… Connor.” Jylan ignored the two other Tranquil. “But I-”

“Compounder Ansera, the reagents are unacceptably burnt.” That, he could not ignore.

“I must return to my duties. It is good that you are well.” And then he began to retreat.

“I’m coming back tomorrow!” Connor called after him. Jylan vanished behind the curtain and Connor…

Connor made sure to tell Bann Talbind he was very sorry for the great inconvenience to the College of Herbalists, but he had found an appropriate candidate for the position at Vigil’s Keep already. He did not need to meet with the College, and he would of course pen a most humble letter of apology to them in the morning.

A message was delivered to him before dinner that evening by one of the Bann’s servants. She said she hadn’t gotten a good look at the person who’d brought it to the estate, and what Connor received was a simple slip of parchment with the name of one of Amaranthine’s taverns on it, just off the market. He threw the slip in the fire and went to dine with his friends and the Bann.

“Why apologize to me when it seems you’ve completed your mission early! This is cause for cheer, accompanied by a proper telling about that _Dragon_ Warden Bouclier mentioned…!” Bann Talbind was a very affable man and the evening went nicely, but Connor’s mood was hurting.

That night he let out the entirety of his flight from the Circle of Magi to Hawke and Evie. It occurred to him when he came to the overland journey to Redcliffe, and the young apprentice whose wasting sickness he hadn’t been able to stop for lack of simple, basic knowledge of herbs, that he’d never actually _told anyone_ this story before. He’d never actually opened his mouth and said to someone else, _“I left Kinloch Hold with six children, reached the Imperial Highway with one, and made it to Redcliffe village alone_.”

He’d never described his mentor’s death to someone, not beyond ‘ _she died in the Rebellion’_. He’d never spoken aloud a description of Elorah’s magic, of her scream, of four armed and armoured men beating and stabbing the elven woman to death on a pebbled beach at sundown. Never spoken of himself hauling the boat through the cold water, trying to outrun the nightmare.

Connor slept fitfully, needled by guilt and anxious to the point of wanting to scream out-loud in the night. He’d left Jylan to die. He’d left him to die. He’d left his friend to die. He’d seen him run through and written him off as dead, but he’d still been alive, and Connor had left him to _die_.

He was calmed by Evie’s hands pulling on his in the dark. He was comforted by the way Hawke had announced Connor was too wound up to risk sleeping alone in case something in the Fade heard him wailing, and had thus flopped himself on to Connor’s bed with no room for argument. He still didn’t sleep well, but at least when Connor was awake he got to enjoy the warm arm cast around him from behind, the sweet scent of Evie’s hair on the pillow next to him. Whatever unspoken agreement let the three of them co-sleep together without issue, Connor was glad for it.

What followed were three days of Connor’s increasingly aggressive efforts to have an uninterrupted conversation with his friend. Sod the Knights of Redcliffe, Zevran was probably watching Connor’s every move in the city and he made sure the Assassin only ever saw him go one place on his own: the guildsmen.

Formari had one hour before dawn, one hour at mid-day, and one hour at dusk where they didn’t have to work. But interrupting any of those hours would leave less time for that person to eat, or bathe, or relieve themselves, or do anything that wasn’t aggressive enchanting and magical chemistry.

The first day Connor loitered for the better part of the _entire day_ catching Jylan whenever the black-haired elf strayed from the workshop to fetch ingredients not in the Formari store-room or replenish something that had run low on the tables. He would have felt bad for his persistence but Jylan was a Compounder, there was no need for him to be delivering boxes of runes to the front room, or to be so slow about it when Connor spoke to him, and several other Formari said as much. Connor gave him the paperwork from Garevel about the pay, duties, and potential advancements before finally having to leave.

Jylan obviously read them, because the next day he had questions to ask Connor and he was happy to answer them. What sorts of things did they actually make? Would the Commander of the Grey accept a Tranquil working in his fortress? Apparently Surana had not been thrilled the first time around when Owain and Jylan arrived on his doorstep seeking sanctuary.

Connor couldn’t fault Surana for that, Tranquil were upsetting.

On the third day, Connor loitered for an hour before he was told to leave because they knew he wasn’t there to buy anything.

“I am a Grey Warden here to speak with my friend, a Freeman from Gwaren.” He argued, and when the order to leave was repeated he stomped his foot and would not go! “I thought for sure you would have noticed that the Circle of Magi has disintegrated! Tranquil are no longer the Chattel of the chantry! Compounder Ansera is a Freeman and I will see him if I have to go through the entire guild hall to do so!”

“That would be inappropri-”

“ _Then let me see my friend!_ ”

It took five minutes for Jylan to appear from out behind the curtain that warded off the workshop from the front room. He was holding a small satchel in his hand, walked faster than the usual Tranquil plod, and seemed almost urgent when he stopped directly in front of Connor for a beat, said _‘come’_ , and then proceeded to walk straight out into the market.

Connor let the Tranquil lead him out between the lanes of the market, the cold autumn wind hissing through the stalls under the cloudy sky. They found grey granite steps leading up towards the city’s chantry and finally at the top of them Jylan stopped and spoke to him.

“I have spoken with Guildmaster Owain regarding your offer, and deemed my employment too unwieldly a burden.” Connor was baffled by this.

“What do you mean, unwieldly?”

“Although I may retain my affiliation to the Guild itself and limited access to requisition discounted reagents, all Guild property must remain within the hall.”

“Such as?”

“All tools and materials.” Jylan answered, and then came a steady flow of monotone words: “My glassware, pestel, knives, and brewing pots. Previously prepared reagents intended for my own use. My guild robes, shoes, apron, gloves, belt, and cloak. My bedding, brushes, and soaps, herb basket, collected books, cutters, and tended plants.” Connor felt his gut clench and twist, he didn’t know if he was outraged or ready to scream and cry again.

“So you’re saying… they’ll turn you out in your smallclothes.”

“It has been five years. Those are also property of the guild.” Cry. Connor was definitely going to cry. “What I am permitted to take, beyond myself, is this.” He handed the pouch in his hand to Connor. “However the satchel must also be returned.” _Maker._

Connor opened the drawstring satchel. It felt empty until he stuck his hand down into the corner where he found something made of wood. Something round. Something he had to look at Jylan to try and confirm what it was before pulling out a round wooden locket decorated with a carved chantry sunburst. It was old, it was losing its yellow and red paint. The talisman had a brass pin at the top that allowed the locket’s front and back to swing apart in a circle, revealing a delicately carved verse from the Chant of Light on one side, and _‘May the Maker Guide you back to our love - Mother’_ on the inside of the cover.

Connor hadn’t seen the locket in years. He didn’t know how Jylan had found it. The last time Connor had seen it had been before their cohort Amara had finished spinning the cover round and round in her hand, stuffed it under her pillow, and told Connor to go back to the boy’s side of the Apprentice dorms.

The next morning, she’d been dead and every trace of her bundled up and removed from the tower.

“ _How?_ ” Connor wheezed, eyes weeping again like they had so many times this week. “How did you find this? No one knew when their Harrowing would be and no one-”

“I was working in the storeroom when she was taken to the Harrowing Chamber.” Jylan told him in the same even, disinterested voice. “Templars ignored the Tranquil, they did not care if we knew who was on their way to the Harrowing.”

“But how did you _get this?_ ”

“It was under her pillow.” But that- but he was a- “Had she survived, it seemed unlikely the Templars would care to remove hidden belongings from the bedding before sending it to the laundry. I intended to return it to her in the morning, or wait for her to yell at you for thieving.”

“Oh _thank you_.” Connor said thickly, rubbing his eyes hard trying to make the tears stop. He clenched the locket tight in his hand, looking down at it again and saw where the cord she’d worn it from had worn off and snapped away. The wooden hoop was still firmly attached so it would be easy to replace. Heart tight and burning from the old pain, he took Jylan’s hand and pressed the locket back into his palm. He’d had it for five years, it was his now.

“It is unfortunate I cannot go with you, Connor.”

“Unfortunate how?” He wiped his face again with his hand, wincing as his gloves rubbed hard over his skin. “All you’ve told me is we need to go through the market before you come to the Vigil.”

Jylan was silent. Connor counted the long seconds between his comment and the Tranquil’s response.

“That is a significant quantity of coin.”

“But is that your only obstacle?” Connor asked. “Jylan, speak honestly with me. I will not _drag_ you from the Guildsmen if you desire to stay. I understand feeling loyalty towards someone who pulled you from a bad situation and if you want to remain under Guildmaster Owain then I will respect that. But you’re a Freeman, you do not _have_ to work for the guild if you have another job being offered up to you.”

“I do not want anything, I am Tranquil.”

“Fine, what you _prefer_ then.” Connor corrected. “You wouldn’t be as busy at Vigil’s Keep but you’d have to deal with a lot of people coming in and out of the workshop, so you’d get less done. But you would have more time for yourself too: you would have freedom to walk wherever you wanted, take meals where it pleased you, and maybe even tend a garden if I make a case for one to the Seneschal. Your pay would be yours and no one could tell you what to do with it, not even me.”

Jylan was silent. And he was silent. And he was silent. His cold, detached eyes stared through Connor and made him uncomfortable with their steady attention, but he made himself stand there and take it.

“…you mentioned food.”

“Oh, the food is _fantastic_.” Connor jumped enthusiastically to the topic. He didn’t know what the Tranquil had been fed at the Circle, but he knew what the apprentices had eaten and then the medics at Skyhold. Vigil’s Keep had them all beat. “They have to feed twenty Grey Wardens plus all the soldiers and staff who make the fortress work. I’ve had fresh honey with every breakfast since I arrived at the beginning of summer and the fruit trees are starting to ripen so I expect we’ll be getting more and more of that at meal times soon too. As for butter and cream, nevermind the _cheese_ …”

“I have not had many of those things in many years.” Jylan stated. “Tranquil do not crave flavours, our preferences are not worth much consideration.”

“Are… you saying you’ve been in Amaranthine for almost five years and never had her peach cider?” Connor asked, and Jylan said no. Connor took his friend by the wrist and led him back down into the market.

“Are we returning to the Guild hall?”

“Not before we get lunch.” Connor told him firmly. “And not before we get you sized for new clothes.”

“That will be expensive.”

“What else am I supposed to spend my stipend on? Are you coming with me to Vigil’s Keep or not?”

“I will present my request for reassignment to Guildmaster Owain when we return.”

Like a child leading their disinterested parent, Connor found whatever was rich, fresh, or simply tasty and available in the market for eating. Tart apples dipped in creamed caramel, thick butter and cured ham rolled into fresh bread, roasted tree nuts dusted with sweet and savoury spices, a skin of peach and pear cider that the two of them sipped from in the cold wind.

Simple shirts and trousers were chosen and sized for Jylan, plus a simple cloak and gloves good enough to keep him warm on the road to Vigil’s Keep. Robes were commissioned in soft grey wool, with Connor suggesting they wait until Jylan was settled with his own pay before they bought the heavier items he would need in winter. Shoes were selected and measurements taken to cobble them appropriately, better footwear he could get at the Vigil.

Guildmaster Owain was a bald, bland-faced Formari whose dark eyes seemed perpetually turned down and sad. Connor remembered him vaguely from his time in the Circle, and was as glad as could be expected that Owain had survived when so many other Tranquil had died. He had to be convinced to allow Connor to stand in the meeting between him and Jylan however, and Connor stood dutifully by the door watching the two former mages speak.

It was brisk, blunt, and actually quite rude on both sides. They didn’t have feelings to hurt or tempers to rise so there was no reason for them to muddle their words and intentions. Owain did not think it wise or safe for a Tranquil to leave the Formari. Jylan insisted his skills would be of better use at Vigil’s Keep.

Connor had never seen two Tranquil argue so wasn’t sure if that was what this maybe was. Owain recited a thorough list of guild property to be returned before Jylan could leave, and the elf removed as much of the items from his person as he could without becoming indecent: his gloves and apron and belt, the keys at his waist and his satchel- but the pendant he gave to Connor to hold. And then he started-

“Guildmaster with all due respect,” Connor interrupted when Jylan started taking off his shoes. “The rest of the Guild’s property will be promptly returned before I escort Compounder Ansera to the Vigil. You have my word on this along my pledge for his safety on the road to the fortress.”

Owain was displeased and Jylan simply stated it would not be so terrible an ordeal to walk from the guild hall to the Bann’s estate in only his smallclothes. It took Connor far too long to realize that this wasn’t Tranquil indifference, it was just Jylan.

“You just think it would be funny to walk into the Bann’s estate buck naked.” Connor accused in a shrewd voice. “Don’t give me that blank stare, I remember what you used to do when the Enchanters insisted you bathe.”

“It would leave a memorable impression.” The Tranquil stated, and it sounded remarkably like a monotone joke.

“All the Formari in Thedas and I have to pick the one who likes to run around with his pants on his head.”

Bann Talbind’s good graces ran thin when he realized Connor had brought a Tranquil mage to stay at the estate, but he was urged to find patience and understand that Jylan was harmless and displayed only a very dampened sense of curiosity. Evie was uncomfortable but welcomed Jylan warmly, congratulating him on his choice to join Connor at the Vigil. Hawke stared at Connor for several long hard minutes that evening over dinner, and in a sing-song voice announced “ _Commander’s not gonna liiike thiiis~”_ before seeing himself to his own room for bed.

Over the next two days Connor spent the last of his personal funds on tools for Jylan, aware that what was in Amaranthine was more expensive, but also better quality. With Hawke’s help he squeezed a touch more value from the last bits of gold Garevel had given him and managed to get _two_ granite mortars from a stonecutter in the market, with instructions to have them delivered to Vigil’s Keep after they were completed. Clothes were delivered to their suite at the Bann’s estate, and Connor was eager to leave the city and the persistent checking-over-his-shoulder of wondering where Ser Perth and his men were hiding.

Connor should have left the topic alone, thinking of someone was bound to attract them.

It did not happen the way Connor thought it would. He’d expected more cryptic messages from the knights. He’d let the fear of being snatched from an alley keep him in the middle of most lanes. He’d taken the risk of going to the Guildsmen several times on his own to see Jylan and get him to come away with him, but nothing bad had happened and Connor had begun to breathe easier. He’d ignored the hint to go meet his uncle’s knights in a tavern off the market district, so they’d taken his refusal politely and left!

He was wrong, but it still didn’t happen the way Connor had thought it might.

There was no snatching, no secret messages, no knife-to-his-ribs, no horrible betrayal, in fact it wasn’t even something embarrassing like _‘you there! Wardens who stole the Arl’s son!’_.

It was four armed men flanking a much older man, walking through the market boldly and openly. Their tunics and cloaks were too nice to be thugs, their shoulders back and spines straight like proper soldiers, although they’d left their armour behind and the most any man was wearing could be seen in their leather vambraces and thick greaves on their boots. One or two wore a skirt of chainmail under his tunic, and the knight leading them wore a jerkin woven with delicate metal inlays.

The five-man company stomped through the market, were clearly seen by everyone, and when they made eye-contact with the Grey Wardens they came to a full parade stop. Connor grabbed Jylan’s arm and made sure both of them stepped back, leaving a gap Hawke and Evie immediately filled: senior, frontline Wardens in front, mage and Formari companion at the back.

“Grey Wardens of Amaranthine,” The senior knight said clearly, the lane clearing out immediately at the sight of two companies meeting unexpectedly. “I am Ser Perth of Redcliffe, and I have business with your company.”

“Ser Perth of Redcliffe,” Hawke repeated properly, hands away from his weapons and helmet hanging from his belt as he folded his arms. “I am Warden-Lieutenant Carver Hawke of Amaranthine. Any business with the Grey Wardens is best brought before the Warden Commander of Ferelden in his hall at Vigil’s Keep.”

“Warden Hawke, with all due and gracious respect to the Warden Commander and Hero of Ferelden, the Champion of Redcliffe, our business does not dabble with darkspawn or soldiers. It is a private matter meant to be spoken between men, not their masters.”

“A private matter you’ve made a public affair in this good market.” Hawke rebuked.

“Quieter methods have been interrupted or ignored, Warden Hawke. I am not a man willing to hide and work business in the shadows. On my honour as a Knight and servant to House Guerrin, let our companies speak in trust and good faith, someplace out of the coming rain.”

“Is that location to be of our choosing, or yours?”

“My men have requested good drink, beyond that we will follow where you lead.” Shit.

Connor didn’t like it but Hawke had no polite way out. Perth said he wanted to talk, he was being assertive but not aggressive, he offered flattery to the Commander and respect to Hawke. He requested trust and offered to have his men follow wherever Hawke led them. Unless Zevran came falling from the sky with both daggers drawn looking for a fight, there was no proper way to get out of it.

“Then you will follow.” Hawke said, whether he wanted to or not.

“And you will lead.” Perth answered with a nod.

Connor wanted to hide.


	17. Good Wine And Good Work

Connor did not want to meet with Ser Perth.

Hawke led the combined company of nine through Amaranthine to one of the finer districts, close to the Bann’s estate and away from the noise of the market. They entered a fine public house with clean floors and tables, and a room was immediately prepared to host the large group. Perth did not like this and told Hawke a private table for himself and _‘the one you know I want to speak with’_ would suffice. Carver came very close to telling the knight to shut his trap.

Connor wished very hard that Carver would do something to let this become a brawl. When the room was ready he did not want to go inside. When they were shown to the long table and wine was ordered for all, one of the knights protested Jylan’s presence. Finally, something Connor was capable of responding to.

“You speak to a Formari Guildsman of Amaranthine and friend to the Grey Wardens of Vigil’s Keep.” He said outright from his seat between Jylan and Carver. Perth was sitting directly across from Carver because it had been decided that the two of them were in control of the situation. Evie’s rank as Captain didn’t factor in here: she wasn’t Fereldan, and when it came to Vigil’s Keep Hawke had four years seniority over her. “You will use your tongue respectfully, or keep it behind your teeth.”

“There is no need for such aggressive language.” Perth told him without address. But he looked at Connor directly, holding him with his dark eyes, and it made him bristle.

“Then your knights will speak respectfully, or you will keep them quiet.” Hawke reinforced Connor’s threat and he felt warmth and pride mix in his blood. _Hah_.

Four and five chalices were filled with wine for the sides of the table, Hawke refusing the suggestion of food and sending the servant quietly out of the room, a large flagon of wine left out for them.

“You have your meeting and your drink, Ser Perth of Redcliffe.” Hawke told the man across from him.

“I intended for this to be a private conversation.”

“This _is_ private.”

“Warden Hawke, I do not expect my liege’s son to be able to speak plainly and earnestly with his superior officer sitting right beside him.”

“Warden Hawke,” Connor intruded. “Permission to speak freely and openly with the knights seated before us?” Hawke regarded him for a long moment, and then answered with:

“I can’t believe I’m the one to say this, but keep it civil.” That didn’t sound like Carver at _all_ , but alright. He had appearances to keep up. Connor nodded and looked back at Ser Perth, then spoke clearly, slowly, and loudly, dragging it out like he would for someone hard of hearing.

“I’m _not_ _going_ to Denerim.” He said. “I know you were waiting for me in the Black Arrow all this week, and yes, I ignored you, because the Arlessa has ignored _me_. Ser Perth you have been sent on a fool’s errand. I am not in need of rescuing, I have nowhere to escape from: I am a Grey Warden and my home is Vigil’s Keep.” Ser Perth drew his lips into a thin, shrivelled line.

“You place me in a difficult position, my lord.” Connor set his teeth.

“I am not a lord, I am a _Warden_.” Ser Perth raised a hand for peace and then took a swallow from the wine in front of him. Connor, disgusted that he had to go through with this meeting, drank from his as well.

“Her grace believes you are being held against your will.” Connor shot Perth a _nasty_ look from over the silver edge of his chalice, and drank a little more. “But watching the market this week for you I am put at odds with her choice of words. You part from and rejoin your companions frequently, they do not go after you when you wander or call you back to them as if you are under watch. You foray into the market on your own and make no indication of escape or the urge to flee.”

Connor finished the wine and resisted the urge to throw the empty cup across the table. They’d been _watching_ him? So then they could have just snatched him off the street if they’d wanted to! It was one thing to know Zevran was in the city keeping an eye on things, but Connor felt his blood boil at the idea of Redcliffe doing the same thing.

The knights drank their wine, refilling the red vintage from a large flagon left on the table. Connor waited for the servant to return and both fill his cup and replace the flagon because it was better than let anything the knights touched or offered reach his lips. The conversation circled.

The Arlessa had ordered her knights to bring Connor back to Denerim, Connor refused to go, and Perth was too honourable to snatch him like a prize ram when it was clear Connor was exercising his own control over the matter. Hawke clarified that they needed to be back at Vigil’s Keep within the next week, leaving no time for the journey all the way from Denerim and back without missing their deadline. None of the Wardens at the table mentioned that Connor would have a fortnight free after that, and he wanted to be sure he thanked Evie and Carver for that bit of grace later.

Another tall drink of wine and Connor bared his teeth a bit more.

“What is Lady Rowan’s illness?”

“It is beyond my knowing, Warden.” Good, Perth finally addressed him _properly_. “I know she suffers to sleep and has lost a dramatic amount of weight these last few months. Her mother claims she is in great pain, and from her pale complexion and weak disposition, I would say the same.” There was genuine pain in Perth’s face and voice when he gave the account, and despite himself Connor felt his heart soften a little.

“If it is wasting sickness…” He uttered slowly, cup hovering under his lips before he took a smaller, more thoughtful drink this time. “The herbalists of the Hinterlands should know the proper medicines to settle her stomach and allow her to eat more comfortably. Embrium for sleep, snowdrops for the pain, and crystal grace to make feeding easier.”

“It would mean a great deal to the Arlessa if you would come to Redcliffe and oversee her condition.”

“And as I have said before, Ser Perth, I will not do so.” Honestly the man was _deaf_. “Whatever my parents would have you believe, I did not know a young girl named Rowan Guerrin existed in Ferelden until two months ago when the Commander of the Grey told me as much. I am not going to abandon my life and responsibilities for someone, young and innocent as she may be, whom I don’t know or have any connection to.”

“She is your _sister_.” Perth pleaded, and it hurt, but it wasn’t going to work.

“She is the child of two people I have not seen or had contact with in well over ten years.” Connor corrected. “You may kindly tell Arlessa Isolde,” and here he placed a hand near Hawke just in case the Senior Warden thought he was going to forget about being _‘civil’_ , “That her garden won’t die for lack of rain, but from the gardener’s lack of care. I have offered her my assistance in contacting the Formari of Amaranthine for their medicines.” He gestured to Jylan beside him, although the Tranquil had nothing to do with any of this. “And I’ve offered to approach the Hero of Ferelden himself: the Archmage whose healing abilities outstrip mine _many_ times over. Her response was to ignore that and send you all this way instead. I am sorry, Ser Perth, but the Arlessa may not be as interested in helping her daughter as she would have you believe.”

Perth looked shocked by his comments and one of the knights further down shoved to his feet, hands on the table.

“You would doubt the Arlessa’s love for her child?” The man hissed.

“Never her love, Ser knight.” Connor admonished, shaking his head and reaching for his wine. The wine was thick but the taint was stronger: Wardens couldn’t get drunk off just four cups of anything. “Her judgement and her care, yes. But never her love.”

“Your own _mother,_ you ungrateful-” Another knight rose but she put her hand to her dagger, meaning Hawke knocked his chair back, an inch of his own knife’s steel already drawn with one hand planted on the table. Connor put his wine down quickly without spilling it, fingers spread over the grain of the wood as the fire in his chest began to rumble at the early signs of aggression.

“That is enough!” Ser Perth reigned in his knights and Hawke was no fool, he knew how to pull himself back without losing face. Jylan had left his seat and quietly picked up Hawke’s chair, and now he retreated to one of the room’s corners: a very typical Tranquil response to conflict. “Warden Guerrin, does your offer to speak to the Formari or the Hero of Ferelden have any conditions I should know about?”

“A proper list of symptoms and how long they’ve been present for, if only so the Commander and the Formari can get a proper sense of what they’re dealing with.” Connor told him as Hawke remained standing, arms folded over his armoured chest. “Beyond that, no.”

Ser Perth looked grave, but nodded.

“Men, leave the wine, we are done here. Good day to you, Grey Wardens, may we meet again under happier circumstances.”

“Maker Watch Over You, Ser Perth of Redcliffe.” Hawke made the blessing sound like a kick out the door, and the knights filed slowly out of the room behind their officer. As soon as they were gone and out of earshot, Hawke gestured for the girl waiting outside the room to come inside, picked up the empty flagon and gestured to it.

“We had, I think, three of these.” He told her, “How much do they cost?”

“Half silver each for the red, Grey Warden.” Hawke turned and looked at Connor, he had the answer without hearing the question:

“I’ve got a bit less than twenty coppers left.” He’d arrived with _so much_ money, but he’d bought a lot of things too. Still, fifty bits for wine seemed expensive until he remembered what kind of place they were in.

“I’ve got ten silvers left.” Hawke said. “Evie?”

“Twelve silvers.”

“Oi, Ansera, do you drink?” Hawke asked Jylan. The tranquil responded with one of his long, empty pauses, and then answered in monotone.

“I do not believe Tranquil can become intoxicated.” He reported.

“Have you got any money to test that theory with?”

“No, Grey Warden.”

“Twenty should still be plenty.” He handed the flagon to the servant, followed by a handful of nine silvers for wine and one more for girl who made the tip disappear like magic. “It’s our last day in Amaranthine, _someone’s family_ had to ruin it, and I intend to get shit-faced on good wine. Let that cover the tab and keep bringing the wine until it runs out.”

Connor’s bad mood agreed completely with Hawke’s decision: he was going to wash the bitterness of the entire day out of his mouth with too much wine, a little bit of food, and then even more wine. If that meant drinking the wine the Knights of Redcliffe had left behind, so fucking be it.

Evie waited until the first fresh flagon arrived before quietly stating that this was not _good wine_. Connor gave up his coppers for as much food as twenty bits could get, which turned out to be an alright amount to start with. Hawke set out to discover if Tranquil could become intoxicated and Jylan had never been one to resist a foolish idea for, as he put it in that monotone voice, _‘the simple sake of knowing’_.

As it turned out, Elven Tranquil who had no experience with any alcohol, let alone thick Free Marcher wine, could only go about three and a half cups before it stopped being fun. Jylan quietly ate bread, drank water, and fell so soundly asleep that Connor felt terrible for dragging him through today. They opened the window as evening fell and the servants lit a fire in the room’s hearth, three chairs pulled to the warm glow so Jylan could sleep in relative peace at the table where he’d folded his arms and put his head down a long time ago.

But he didn’t feel terrible about Evie’s warm hand on his knee, or the deep music in her voice when she told Connor how serious and noble he’d sounded against Perth. His face was warm and the wine was better than she’d given it credit for, so of course when he tried to say something nice to her it didn’t come out right.

“When we get back, Evie, I’m-” He liked that tingling feeling he got when he was drunk, it went warm down his arms and tickled his feet. “I’m going to make you- um,” But it also played with his tongue, causing the thought to get stuck and the words to trip over themselves. Perfume. He was trying to talk to her about perfume. “I’ll make you…” He just couldn’t remember how the hell he wanted to say it and ended up… not sure what he’d said.

“ _Oh?_ ” Because Evie’s dark eyes went wide. She was lounging on the floor with her arm leaning on her old chair, but then she moved until her arm was spread across his knees. “Make me _what_ , Warden? You have me so _very curious_ now…” Oh no- oh no wait that was not what he meant-

“Are you _flirting?_ ” Carver’s voice interrupted the screech and crash of Connor’s thoughts. He came down over the back of Connor’s chair with an arm poised to hook under his chin in a playful hold, laughing, wine sweet breath grinning over his ear. “ _You_ , Connor Guerrin, the _shyest_ and _most timid_ man to _ever_ call himself a Grey Warden, _flirting?_ ” Maker, his breaths were warm he was so warm he was so warm Connor felt so warm…

“I’m- I didn’t- I meant-”

“Stop teasing him!” Evie scolded as Carver came down to sit on the other side of Connor’s chair, also on the rug by the fire, and Connor made himself quickly slide down and join the two of them because being on the chair made him feel very high up and very very vulnerable. He realized how bad this mistake was when he realized how much _warmer_ it was this close to the fire. “He was teasing _me_ , it was _nice_.”

“ _I_ tease you _all the time_.” Carver’s voice was sing-song from the drink, and because he filled Connor’s glass again it was decided that more alcohol was not a bad idea.

“Yes, but _you_ never have the decency to be nervous about it.” Evie rebuked, settling her arm over Connor’s shoulder and leaning on it. “ _Look_ , he’s blushing.”

“He’s _drinking_.”

“I’m _right_ here.” Connor’s voice faltered and went high, a very embarrassing thing to go through, but made better and worse at the same time when Evie’s finger brushed his chin and made him look at her. Oh Maker, she was very close…

“You have made a mistake, _mon cher_. By inviting your old Circle friend to the Vigil we will uncover _all of your terrible_ secrets.” She teased him and Connor tried to babble something about not having secrets and _it was very warm in here_ … “No no, I mean the _fun_ secrets. For example, I will soon know how many lucky girls these lips have pleased.” These lips, meaning his lips, which her finger brushed lightly over. None!

“One?” He croaked instead. Oh right, it was one. “A cohort- we were a trio with Jylan.” Evie didn’t remove her finger: she was smiling at him as Connor squirmed. “She kissed me, but I think I said the wrong thing, because then she slapped me and said we were done.”

Hawke almost snorted wine out his nose. Evie’s laugh was that delighted kind of eager horror.

“What did you say to the poor girl, _mon cher?_ ”

“I think it was _‘Why did you do that? We’re going to be late now._ ’” And then Amara had hit him. And now Evie was laughing at him, clapping her hands with delight at his stupid story.

“Oh _Connor_ , how old were you?”

“Thirteen? Fourteen? I can’t remember…” It was before they’d been split between their mentors, and Jylan hadn’t been made Tranquil until years later.

“You cannot _say_ things like that, oh, the poor child…”

“But what- you mean that was _it?_ ” Carver asked. “No no, Anders used to say everyone was doing everything at the Ferelden Circle when he was there.”

“Oh, they were…” Connor agreed. “A bunch of teenaged apprentices scared they could be Harrowed at any moment? Always knock on every door, and always wait ten long seconds before entering what you thought was an empty classroom.”

“What about you?” Carver pressed.

“What about me?” Evie rolled her eyes with a heavy scoff from his shoulder.

“He just said he only kissed one girl one time,” She said, gesturing with her silver cup in one hand. “What makes you think he was running around with all that? Getting into trouble hiking up girls’ skirts?” Oh _Maker_ -!

“You never know,” Carver rolled the words around in his mouth, the wine staining his bowed lips. “Not every girl likes kissing.” Evie snorted and told him that just showed how much Carver knew about women, Carver responded by leaning in tantalizingly close to both of them to say something clever. The chatter continued and Connor just tried to breathe around how unfair it was not to be able to kiss two people at once. Not that either one would let him, but _still…_

They drank their wine and roused Jylan past midnight, returning to Bann Talbind’s estate tipsy and in good humour. Connor put his old friend to bed with profuse apologies, then crept across the suite to the room left for him. He didn’t see where Carver and Evie went but he heard them laughing at something together and then he went to bed. Alcohol was better than Embrium: the demons couldn’t get you if you fell into the fade and honestly believed you were a sunflower.

Bann Talbind bid them good-bye the next morning bearing a few important documents for the Arling. It turned out Jylan, hangover soothed by Connor’s magic and the kitchen’s own know-how, had never ridden a horse before. This posed a problem that could only be solved one of two ways: either he had to ride with someone, or he had to learn very, very quickly.

Connor offered up Issan. She was a large, proud Ferelden Forder but well on in her years, patient and stable and used to idiot riders like Connor himself. Jylan did not ride easy or comfortably, but at least Issan knew to hold her pace steady and trot at a delicate rhythm that didn’t actively try to swing the elf off her back. Connor rode beside him on a mount borrowed from the Silver Order, and the Tranquil fumbled with the reigns and tried to keep his new cloak closed against the cold autumn rains as Amaranthine’s hills rolled by.

When they arrived at Vigil’s Keep in the mid-afternoon, Connor took Jylan to the Seneschal to introduce his new assistant- not his apprentice, his _assistant_. Garevel was welcoming right up until the moment Jylan removed his hood, his dark skin showing the pale brand of Tranquility under the messy black mop of his hair. The Seneschal’s gasp was hard for Connor to recover from, but Jylan was unflappable and didn’t see the reaction as offensive: he was Tranquil. Tranquil were unsettling.

The Seneschal explained his pay, and his expected schedule of work- six days out of every seven, with one day for rest and reflection. Work was expected of him from morning bell until lunch, and then lunch until the dinner bell, the rest of the hours were his to use as he chose. He would collect his meals in the servant’s hall, a place Connor had seen but not visited properly. His key to his room was his own so he’d better not lose it, and he would be paid his full stipend in the middle of every month.

“When Warden Guerrin is present at Vigil’s Keep, you will report directly to him. When he is away on business, you will report to me if you have any issues or troubles. I hope I have not overwhelmed you.” Jylan did not look overwhelmed, he looked like he hadn’t heard a single thing: he was Tranquil.

“Thank you, Seneschal Garevel.” He said politely, and they left.

Jylan’s room was near the workshop. It was a bed, a bookshelf, a standing closet, and a wash-basin by the window. It was half the size of Connor’s room upstairs, more of a glorified closet with a window knocked in the wall for light, but when he stood in the middle of it Connor watched his friend take on that deep, moving silence of his. He touched the walls, running his fingers across the mortar. He touched the bed, which had been made already. He stood in front of the bookshelf and took a long, steady look at the window.

“Should I leave you to get settled in?” Connor asked, realizing that between the Gwaren Alienage, the Circle Tower, and the Guildsmen, Jylan had probably never had his own room before.

“No. Show me the workshop.” He did, and here Jylan didn’t fall into his silence, here he was active: this was familiar. He started at one end and went through everything in the room: what was in which jars, how the herbs had been prepared or left to dry, what was in stock, everything that was not, where Connor kept his tools, how many tools he had, the quality of them, and so on.

Jylan unpacked his tools in the workshop rather than go through things in his room. Connor pulled his nearly-full notebook out so they could go through the lists of things the Vigil needed, what she had, and what Connor wanted for her. Jylan agreed with some parts and corrected others, but for most of it he simply stared blankly and nodded only when prompted. They parted at the evening bell to each find something to eat from their respective halls, and then to their respective baths, and then hopefully to their respective evenings and beds… but Connor was an anxious mess throughout. What if he wasn’t okay? What if he got lost? What if someone made a scene about a Tranquil in the Vigil? What if the sun didn’t come up tomorrow and the sixth Archdemon popped right out from under Amaranthine city?

He made himself push the thoughts away and sleep.

The next two weeks were… an experience.

“A _Tranquil?_ ” Surana demanded an explanation for Connor’s choice, he came right to Connor’s door to get it. It was the scariest moment of Connor’s life barring anything to do with demons or darkspawn. But it was still terrifying and Connor babbled out the history and the reasons and who Jylan was and why Connor hadn’t gone to the College of Herbalists although Surana had _told him to_ and _he knew that but but but-_ “Enough! Enough, Connor. Alright. I told you to choose someone who you could work with comfortably and who can do the job. Very well, Compounder Ansera will stay.”

Tranquil were not dangerous. That was the entire reason they existed: they’d been cut off from the Fade and had no emotional responses to guide them without the ability to dream. Demons didn’t come for them, magic was beyond them, and typically they would, like Jylan, choose to walk a path of least resistance and most use to the people around them. Surana had allowed Tranquil to congregate in Amaranthine, but it was worth pointing out that he’d assigned them a guild hall in Amaranthine City and left them to their own devices and internal-management, not Vigil’s Keep where he would have had to see them on a regular basis.

But Jylan was allowed to stay, and that was what mattered most to Connor.

Jylan was a Tranquil and Tranquil didn’t have an off setting. He woke up before the morning bell from habit and would stand either in his room or just outside the workshop until he heard it toll. Then he would go inside and be hard at work before Connor wandered down to get to work himself. As soon as the bell tolled again in the evening, Jylan would freeze, almost upset by tasks left half-finished and interrupted by the bell that told him he had to stop. Connor broke him of that habit gently, and they decided it was better to include clean up as part of the working day than to have something half-done and have to clean it up after the bell had already sounded.

He had difficulty understanding that he wouldn’t be penalized for working after his mandated time had expired. If he didn’t have to stop at the bell then why did the bell have to be rung? It was too hard for him. He wanted- no, he _preferred_ , to know exactly when to start and stop his day. It was a challenge, but they overcame it.

Jylan also suffered with multitasking. He could carry a conversation… or at least what counted for conversation with a Tranquil and work at the same time, but if he had something boiling then he needed to watch it boil and do nothing else. If he had something he was slicing then he couldn’t also have something that needed mixing sitting next to him. If something had to boil in a pot then he needed to have every _single_ ingredient readied and laid out, ready to add them in according to timing and heat measurements. His workspace was meticulous and Connor picked up the good habit from him of double and triple-washing his knives, his new cleaver, his cutting boards and his jars.

Mistress Valora didn’t care who made what as long as she got the poultices and salves and draughts she needed for her work. She greeted Jylan politely and then clicked her tongue waiting for both of them to finish putting together her basket of required medicines for the week. Once it was done she left with the same brisk, business-like nod she always did.

The stablemaster was dismissive of another elf in the apothecary shop but then shrieked and clutched his Andrastian amulet when he saw Jylan turn with the Tranquil brand on his forehead. It wasn’t until he left with his ointments for hoof-rot and dental care that Jylan suggested Connor not bash his cleaver quite so hard on his cutting board, or he would cut through it.

“I hate watching people react like that around you.” He grunted.

“Perhaps consider that, as a Tranquil, the offense is easily ignored.”

“But it _does_ offend you, and-”

“I am Tranquil, Connor.”

The work broke down easily, almost naturally between them. Because Jylan could not multitask, they agreed to have him work on large batch orders and meticulous tasks that would not frustrate or bore him due to his condition. Connor helped with those tasks, but left himself available to hop up whenever someone entered the workshop looking for something: a simple remedy, a question, a minor hurt or symptom they wanted looked at. The turnover of visitors increased, as did the volume of crafted materials that were slowly able to fill the workshop’s shelves and jars. Self-sufficiency in a year didn’t seem quite so daunting when in two weeks Jylan produced enough elfroot jelly and poultices to see the Wardens comfortably through the next two months.

Velanna introduced herself after finding Jylan curious with his raised hood and tendency to take his food from the servant’s hall to stand outside the workshop eating it. Connor considered her sympathetic to either Jylan’s elven heritage, his tranquil status, or both. He was relieved beyond words when he left with Sigrun and Nathaniel for two weeks to handle a Wyvern infestation near the Blackmarsh, came back with a saddlebag full of dawn lotus, Wyvern scales, and numerous other reagents, and also found Jylan and Velanna with a bond that echoed of friendship. As much friendship as a Tranquil could feel, anyways.

Velanna lent him books. Jylan read them in his empty hours and filled much of his time speaking to her when Connor was not around. She showed him a kind of Dalish crafting with dyed thread and a hoop of woven branches that An’eth gasped out-loud at the sight of. This kindled another friendship that led to Connor losing his assistant completely on his day of rest only to have him turn up in An’eth’s room, seated on the floor across from her and over a massive pile of dyed string, their needles and fingers spinning patterns and stitches.

Connor accepted a lovely web of blue and silver threads that knotted and tugged each other in a hundred directions, mimicking stars. It was as wide as his open hand and Jylan had put his, as he claimed it, ‘s _ubstandard’_ enchanting abilities to work by stitching patterns for dream warding into the knots and twists. Connor hung it happily over his bed and slept deep and dreamlessly with it hanging there.

Connor didn’t pry into how Jylan and Mistress Delilah came to be acquainted, he just knew he was happy when he realized his friend had begun to cross-stitch patterns and pictures on his clothes from Amaranthine. It was obsessive, meticulous work, and it echoed faintly of a boy who’d once used an erratic burst of magic to explode half their brewing lesson just because he’d liked the colours of the smoke it produced. Delilah taught him how to make patterns with stitched threads the way Velanna had shown him to loop and link them. Soon enough he was doing more stitching than reading, and he had people he could speak to instead of standing silently waiting for a work bell to tell him what to do.

“Of course you can.” Was Connor’s obvious response after Jylan devoured a book on dye-making and requesting the materials and time to try it. His first batch of blood-lotus juice didn’t work, his second produced a lovely crimson, followed by deep burgundy, and then a fiery orange. Mistress Delilah provided the threads, Connor provided the drying rack, and the tedious hobby brought welcome colour and warmth to the darkest, wettest part of autumn.

Connor kept himself busy with a jar of vanilla and rose hip butter that made Evie catch him in a wonderful hug and kiss his cheeks for it. For Carver he produced a requested bottle of stain for a repaired corridor in the keep, but he’d added a mint essence to it that followed Hawke around for days and made Connor close his eyes every time the scent drifted by. Connor Guerrin was in love with his two best friends and it didn’t matter whether he was sharing a bottle of wine with Evie or listening to Carver read his favourite parts from Antiva’s best playwrights, he was _happy_.

Autumn thundered on and winter began to loom. The Vigil’s gut rumbled with activity: her kitchens, her baths, her forge, her library, her apothecary. Connor rode with Hassick, Oghren, and Hestel to bring aid to a small township in Amaranthine’s western hills nearly washed away by flooding. They couldn’t save the houses, but they saved the people who’d lived in them. The Wardens and Silver Order saw the refugees settled in other parts of the Arling, and Connor returned soaking wet but satisfied with the work.

The Orlesian Wardens of Solider’s Peak were in the middle of electing their national Commander of the Grey- but infighting in the fortress had caused a violent split: half wanted to throw in with their Ferelden hosts and forge a new arm of the Grey Warden Order under Surana. The others wanted an Orlesian commander to take them back to Orlais. Surana rode to and from the fortress several times in the heavy rain and darkening days, every time allowed in to his own fortress, but always forced to leave for Vigil’s Keep again before an agreement could be reached. The Orlesians were stubborn. Teyrn Cousland’s patience were running out.

“ _If they will not pay taxes to Highever, then they will pay taxes to Amaranthine and **I** will pay Cousland his due **personally!** ”_ It was coming down to money. Highever maintained the road to Soldier’s Peak, they protected the mountain pass and their soldiers and engineers needed to be paid for their work. The merchants paid taxes upon reaching the Peak in order to ply their trade, but the Wardens were not turning over the taxes to the Terynir, nor were they paying their regular dues to the Teyrnir _anyways_. Their only remaining excuse would have been if taxation and dues were being sent to the First Warden in the Anderfels, but the Orlesians had _broken_ with Weisshaupt.

Surana was outraged and rightly embarrassed: Soldier’s Keep was a _Fereldan Grey Warden_ outpost, it was subjected to _Fereldan taxes_. If they would not pay the Teryn, and they would not pay the King, and they would not pay the First Warden, then they would pay Surana or face a consequence the Warden Commander had been holding back against for months.

“We will seal the road, we will block them in, and we will let them starve just like Sophia Dryden before them!” As a Grey Warden, Connor was present with the others when Surana met with a messenger from the Orlesian faction. Over twenty men, women, humans, elves, dwarves, mages, and Dalish, in full armour, watching silently as the Warden Commander berated and broke down the shame-faced messenger who’d come to deliver news that no, the latest vote had not produced an answer to the Orlesians’ leadership. “Soldier’s Peak is impenetrable but she is not eternal! I am sick of wasting _time!_ Go back to them and tell the Warden Constables that they have worn out their Fereldan welcome! I do not expect back-taxes for the last year, but I expect a token, a sign, a clear and deliberate show of _intention_ to respect the customs and laws of the land that welcomed their lot to this country in the first place!”

The messenger had begun this meeting looking strong and proud and self-assured, he ended it by dropping on one knee in front of the Warden Commander, fist to his heart.

“Please- _Warden Commander,_ I must know how long Soldier’s Peak has to respond to this order of taxation.”

“If I have not received an affirmative answer by the time the Peak seals with winter snow, messenger, then she will find an army waiting at her doorstep when the thaw opens it back up. Go! Fly back to your masters with this warning. They will respect the authority of the Ferelden Landsmeet, or they will find the land itself pulled out from under them!”

The messenger fled that night through the cold rain without taking a meal or changing his horse. Warden Commander Surana had brought down the war-hammer and there wasn’t a soul alive in Vigil’s Keep stupid enough to call it a bluff. Maker Willing, Soldier’s Peak would be as wise.

Evie was distraught. These were her brothers, her countrymen, the people she’d left behind in Skyhold to catch up to Surana’s Company months ago. If she’d stayed with them then she would be one of the Wardens at Soldier’s Peak, caught up in the infighting and bickering with the sand slowly running from the glass.

“I should go to them, I know I should.” She was red-eyed and face puffy from crying, her door closed and Connor alone with her in the warm room, fire crackling in her hearth and the two of them sitting on her bed. Evie’s thick, coarse, tightly curled black hair had grown longer and longer over the last several months and Connor was using the wide mouth of a wooden brush to carefully part and smooth it in to even sections for braiding. He didn’t know much about hair but he’d learned to be dexterous, and this wasn’t the first time he’d offered to help her- it was just the first time he’d done it with her upset like this.

“Has Surana said anything to you?” Connor asked in a hushed voice, setting the brush down and gathering her hair. It clung to itself when parted and spread, making it easier for his unpracticed hands to smooth, fold, and twist the arms of the Orlesian-style braid down the side and back across her head, the way she’d been trying to do before he’d found her. She’d bathed to try and calm down, and her skin smelled like vanilla and rose-hips, but she was crying and Connor wanted to do whatever would help make that stop.

“Only that he expects my loyalty, but I don’t know what that _means_ in this situation.” She was tired and upset and exhausted from crying, wiping at her face over and over again as she spoke to him. “He wouldn’t order me to fight my own countrymen, would he?”

“No, I don’t think so, Evie.” In truth Connor didn’t know, that would be quite the assumption to make about the Warden Commander. He was angry. This issue had outraged him for so many months- who knew what he’d do? “Here, tilt your head a little?” She did, and he continued braiding. Gather, fold, twist, gather, fold, twist. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but for your sake I wish I did.”

“We are Wardens, not _Counts_.” Evie said, her deep voice thick with emotion. “We do not play _The Game_ , we are supposed to be beyond petty politics. When I joined the Order under Clarel there was none of this, no division of purpose- did you know Surana has been relying on the Inquisition to control the Western Approach’s boarder since we came back this summer? The Warden Commander of _Ferelden_ has been using Divine Victoria’s _Inquisition_ to solve Orlais’ problems with Darkspawn: it is _shameful_.”

“They’re lost, Evie.” He hushed, “Or they feel lost. Ferelden is a very different place from Orlais and they’ve been trying to sort out what to do without a Leader.” Connor spoke as softly as he could and tied off the end of the braid, it was short, but it didn’t look as bad as he’d feared it would. Reaching down next to him, he picked up a small box Carver had given Evie in Amaranthine: it contained a set of wooden hair pins mounted with dawnstone crystals cut into roses. Connor suspected they were the reason she’d grown her hair out long enough for braiding. Her hair was thick enough to hold the pins when short of course, but as Connor slipped them into the braid they looked better nestled between the thick locks. “There, I think it’s done.”

“Thank you, Connor.” She reached up and ran her hand over his work, feeling the pins and touching the crystals thoughtfully before turning around on the bed. Evie folded herself up into his lap, something she’d done before to get him to fuss and feel awkward but this time she was upset and Connor let the warm feeling have him because she wanted something he could easily give her: comfort.

“If I could make it better then I would, Evie.” She pressed her face to his throat, eyes closed with a heavy sigh, one arm around his back and both of his folding gently around her to hold her warmly.

“I know you would, _mon cher_ ,” She answered softly. “You’re too kind for your own good sometimes.” Connor let his hand stroke her face, looking for those dried tear tracks to brush them aside. She tangled her hand with his and held it for a long, slow moment, then pulled at his embrace and moved away from him, laying down properly on her bed and tugging on Connor’s hand until he followed and set his head down on the pillow next to hers. He didn’t touch her face again, just let their fingers rest in a warm tangle between them. “I have a question for you, Connor.” _Conneur, Conneur_ , always with that lovely Orlesian tug on his name.

“Of course,” He murmured, watching her squirm a little closer to him, their hands clasped.

“When are you going to kiss me?” Uuuh- the warm feeling became uncomfortably hot, and Connor felt a sense of alarm creep up on him. Haha- kiss her, oh boy, what?

“I…” His eyes caught a glimpse of one of those dawnstone crystals in her dark hair, against her rich skin. “I don’t think Hawke would like it if I did that.”

“ _Carver?_ ” She said, dark eyes wide with a soft look of shock. “He would be in no position to stop you- ah, unless you mean you _prefer_ him… That would make sense.” And then her expression dimmed with disappointment. Alarmed even further now, Connor’s hand clasped hers very tightly.

“I- that’s not what I meant.” He stumbled. “I don’t- I don’t _prefer_ you- or him, I- I just…” oh no, oh no, oh no, he didn’t know how to explain this. “But the two of you are close, you’re… very close.” Very close in that, _‘I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen how you look at each other’_ kind of way.

“So are you to him.” She countered gently, her voice quiet to respect the agonizing topic. But she also came closer to him, the warm, round end of her nose rubbing so softly against his and making his lungs seize up, hands walking to her forearms and holding on around the thick muscles of her arms. “But he is a very silly man, and you are a very kind one, and there is not enough of either of those things in the world right now, _Conneur_.” Hahaha he was going to explode.

He kissed her. He didn’t know what he was doing and he felt himself shaking, the air rushing out of his lungs as nerves squeezed his chest, his heart thumping hard and making his whole body pulse. Evie hummed low and soft against his lips, her hand stroking the back of his head, combing through his hair, and she levered her weight against his until Connor was leaning over her and down into the kiss. It broke with his arms shaking and his body terrified of resting on hers, and-

 _“I don’t know what I’m doing-_ ” the air he’d hardly breathed rushed out. “I’ll do something wrong or I’ll upset you or I’ll hurt you or you just won’t like it and- and… and…” She didn’t drag him down into another kiss, she pulled her hands through his hair and down to cup his face. She stroked his neck, let him babble his nonsense, and when he was quiet she didn’t say anything, just looked up at him with her bloodshot, tired, sympathetic eyes.

“Kisses do not hurt, _Conneur_.” She whispered.

“I don’t know _how to_ -”

 _“Practice…”_ And her lips left Trade for the softly uttered tucks and rolls of Orlesian, the words he could almost speak comfortably again. “ _Just like the song of my homeland, my dear, the song your clumsy tongue could not carry when we met at the edge of spring, but now you sing it so sweetly. I know your lips can learn the kindness your heart knows so well, my darling...”_

Evie signed ‘ _please_ ’ between them, and Connor kissed her. He put no weight behind it, trying to find her by touch alone and not hurt her, or make her uncomfortable, or do something sloppy or wrong. When he did it again he looked down and saw her smile. And when he did it again he saw her start to cry and knew it wasn’t his fault: it was the peak and the Wardens and her heart that was ready for any fight she could face but not this one where there was no enemy, just her family on one side and her home on the other.

He kissed the woman he loved until her sadness and her pain dragged her to sleep in his arms, and they passed the night with Connor’s face pressed to her hair, his arms looped around her and bringing Evie’s back close against his chest. They were disturbed only once by the fire burning too low and the constant rain outside making the room feel cold, but Connor hugged her tighter when she scratched at the bed’s covers, closing his eyes tight and prodding the warmth clinging to his bones, saturating his skin: he kicked one foot and the hearth-fire reignited, his will to keep her warm and comfortable and safe enough to keep it burning until morning.

Two days later Connor was summoned from the workshop to meet Commander Surana and receive his next assignment. He trotted through the open doors, side-stepping Kieran who was on his way out with a book under one arm and his Mabari at his heels, and knocked quickly at the Commander’s door. When he was called inside he found Surana standing at his office window, hands clasped behind his back looking down at the Vigil’s walls and cascading rooves, rain running down the glass panes. He didn’t look at Connor, not even when he spoke.

“Join me here, Corporal.”

Connor closed the door, and went to stand by his Commander.

For once in his life, he should have been worried.


	18. Chapter 18

“So you’ll remember the two quarts of lotus oil that need to be sealed and placed into storage?”

“Of course.”

“And you have my room key in case you need to get in there and tend any of the seedlings.”

“That is correct.”

“When Mistress Valora asks about the last of the snowdrops, you’ll-”

“Connor,” Jylan’s flat, disinterested monotone interrupted him. “It is unusual for you to repeat previous conversations.”

“I’m just making sure we both remember everything.”

“However this is an entire exchange, word-for-word, as was already held between us.” The Tranquil told him in that simple, direct way of his. He was watching the cauldron as it boiled actively over its fire, able to do little else until he took a thick rag in his gloved hands and lifted the bitter-smelling brew off the heat a good ten minutes too early? He set the hot cauldron down on a set of stone bricks that were meant to let it cool and turned to face Connor. “We spoke of this twenty minutes ago.”

“I know that, Jylan, and I _just_ wanted to _make sure-_ ”

“You received your orders from the Warden Commander,” Jylan interrupted again. “That was this morning, but you still have not shared the details of your assignment.” He stood there in his plain white robe, the wool decorated along the bottom hem and increasingly at the cuffs of his sleeves with stitches of red and yellow thread. He didn’t mind wearing half-completed work, because it was a hobby and not his job to decorate the clothing he owned. The pin he’d used to work on the left cuff was still folded through the fabric so he could continue tonight after the evening bell.

“I didn’t?” Connor asked, feigning ignorance.

“I would not speak deceitfully nor ignore such an important announcement from you.” And he wouldn’t blatantly interrupt his own work just to address Connor properly either…

“I…” He didn’t know what to say. He tried to think through what he’d been told and felt the anxiety come soaking through his bones again, cold and cloying and making his ribs and heart ache terribly, fear flooding into his lungs like cold water. “I shouldn’t be gone more than two weeks.”

Jylan regarded him blankly, clearly expecting more of a response than that. Connor had been forthright about his previous assignments: the wyvern hunt, the flooded river, and so on. But this time it was harder for him to make the words come out, because it was harder for him to know how he felt about the assignment itself.

“Connor!” Hawke’s voice interrupted, turning both of them to the door as the other Warden barged straight into the workshop. Hawke saw him, came to him, and Connor almost fell back in surprise as he was quickly taken by both arms in his friend’s heavy grip. “I just met with the Commander: I’m coming with you.”

Connor felt his whole body _relax_ with that announcement, closing his eyes as his next breath carried so much of the stress out of him.

“Thank the Maker,” he sighed heavily, then looked back up. “Is the Commander sending you with me or did you have to ask?”

“On his order, I didn’t have to say anything.” Maker Be Praised, Connor hadn’t seen Hawke all day and had come straight from the Commander’s office down here to the workshop. But if Hawke had the same assignment then he knew why Connor didn’t want to do this. “You’re getting a proper honour guard: Hassick went in right after me and Nathaniel was leaving when I got there.”

“He could be sending them anywhere,” Connor didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“’fraid not.” Nathaniel’s voice announced. Hawke turned and Connor saw the Senior Warden leaning on the doorframe before letting himself inside. “The Warden Commander isn’t taking any chances, you’ll be well looked after, Guerrin. You’ll have Hawke, Athras, Hassick, and Bouclier watching the court and I’ll be mighty pissed if anything gets past the four of them, let alone me.”

“Maker, including Connor that’s six Wardens.” Hawke marvelled. He’d let go of Connor’s arms when he turned and now just had his fingers curled almost absently at Connor’s wrist. The contact was welcome.

“He’d throw Zevran on the package but I’ve a feeling he’ll need his back watched at Highever too.” Nathaniel continued, “Bloody mess this is. Compounder Ansera?” He addressed Jylan, and Connor saw the Tranquil float forward to stand next to him.

“Warden Howe.”

“Warden Commander’s given orders for half the Vigil’s Wardens to be dispatched this week, can you have the kits ready for us?”

“Six including Warden Guerrin,” Jylan recited dutifully, “How many will accompany the Warden Commander to Highever?”

“Four, plus Zevran.”

“Twelve basic kits.” Jylan summed up. “Additional two medical kits for the Warden Commander and Warden Guerrin. Poison and grenade belts for Master Arainai and Warden Hassick. They will be ready by tomorrow at noon.”

“I’ll help,” Connor said.

“No,” Nathaniel interrupted. “You’re going to go rest and get that scared look off your face. Ansera, if you need additional hands then you know where to find them.”

“Yes, Warden Howe.” But then came one of Jylan’s pauses, his deep, thorough silences. Not watching him go back to work immediately after receiving instructions made Nathaniel pause and regard him a bit longer.

“Is there something you need?” Nathaniel asked.

“There is no urgency, only an unsettled curiosity.”

“Which is?”

“What are Warden Guerrin’s orders?”

He was going to Denerim. Connor was to make an appearance at court, by order of King Alistair Theirin of Ferelden, and given an address on, in his Majesty’s exact words: _‘probably some boring expense report you usually give the Seneschal about taxes. I don’t care, I just want him here.’_

Connor had read the actual letter from King Alistair to Warden Commander Surana. It had been shockingly informal and blunt, not necessarily unfriendly, but belligerent in ways that made the hairs on the back of Connor’s neck stand straight. Seeing the words ‘ _you tiny, bitter little man’_ addressed to the Hero of Ferelden had made Connor _so uncomfortable_ he might as well have tried to meet with the Commander without wearing pants.

He didn’t remember the entire letter, but he did recall the most important, stomach-churning part.

_‘Yes because Arl Eamon asked me to ask for this, and yes because I think you should do it too, and no you can’t come: you’re going to go see Fergus in Highever and throw rocks at that nest of weasels you’ve got crowed up in Soldier’s Peak! Stop being a little shit and getting people riled up over nothing, because this is getting ridiculous.’_

_‘Do you know what Lady Isolde did? She came into court and began weeping so hard she had to be escorted away by several of Anora’s women. I mean she’s Orlesian and prone to these sorts of things, but good grief, Soren, if you won’t end this then I will: By my order as King of Ferelden, Lord of the Landsmeet, Master of House Theirin, you will send Grey Warden Connor Guerrin of Vigil’s Keep to Denerim **immediately.** ’_

The King had given Surana ten days from the dispatch of the letter to send Connor to court on pain of having the king himself ride to the Keep and ‘ _sit on you until you see reason’_. Connor’s embarrassment had only been outmatched by Surana’s own tight-lipped frustration. Supposedly he wasn’t mad at Connor at all, but at House Guerrin for escalating matters again, and yet Connor wasn’t comforted by it.

The Commander hadn’t expected Connor’s family to go to the King himself for an intervention. Or if they did, he hadn’t expected the King to let himself get involved.

Nathaniel dismissed Connor from his own workshop to go and rest before the trip to Denerim. Hawke stayed with him and tried to talk him out of the emotional wreck he’d torn himself into. He didn’t know if he wanted to cry, rage, fret, or sleep, and trying to figure out if he was appreciative of Hawke’s company or ready to throttle him for his hovering was just too much stress for Connor to suffer working through. His emotions were in all-out revolt: outrage that made his skin burn, humiliation that made his eyes water, terror that kept kicking his heart and lungs so he could barely _breathe_.

“Look. We’ll go, you’ll get it over with, we’ll come back and the matter will be settled.” Hawke tried to get him to sit down, to stop pacing, to stop crying, to say _anything_.

“It _was_ settled!” Connor finally let the words crawl and scream out of him. “In Amaranthine! At that stupid table with Perth!”

“Well your parents obviously want to hear it to their faces,” Hawke was sitting on the foot of his own bed as Connor paced, the books on the rug cleared away so he could pace, and pace, and pace, and pace. He wasn’t angry in a way that made him want to scamper off and find Mahanon’s mages for an ass-kicking, he wasn’t scared in a way that made him want to crawl into bed and hide under the covers, and he wasn’t embarrassed enough to tuck into his work in the shop and forget the stupid thing that was making him feel this way. Connor was _beyond_ his normal threshold; he was ragged with the stress. “Can I ask you a stupid question?”

“It can’t make things worse.” Connor snarled behind his own hands, trying to massage some of the stress away from his scalp. He quashed the bitter hope that Hawke would ask him about Evie, or about the two of them even if there was nothing between them to ask about.

“What if you just… went along with it?” Connor dropped his hands and stared outright at Carver Hawke. “I get it- I _do_.” He was back-peddling: _good_. “They’ve been disrespectful and antagonizing, trying to make you look bad or abandon the Grey Wardens, and you _won’t_ and that’s the _right way to be about it_ , but- Connor this is your _family_.”

“They _lied to me!_ ” The volume of his words just _flooded_ from his mouth.

“I know but they’re your _parents!_ ” Carver stood and Connor faced him square. “This is your sister! You can’t just let pride get in the way of something like this! Maybe it’s a _trap_ , maybe it’s all _lies_ , maybe they’re horrible, awful, terrible people- but what if they’re _not?_ ”

“ _You_ don’t know them.”

“And after ten years you said yourself you don’t either!” Connor was aware of his emotions. He was a mage, he had to always know exactly how he was feeling. A wiser mage would have interrupted Carver and told him _‘This is too close to me for you to get involved, don’t let my anger catch on you, my love.’_ , but Connor was too wrapped up in what he was hearing and Carver took his silence and abused it. “They’re parents and their daughter is sick, Connor, is it so impossible to think that maybe they just want their son back to be with her? If you throw away your only chance to see her and she _dies-_ can you really live with that?”

“What I can and cannot live with is _none_ of your business.” He felt the _hatred_ come rolling off his tongue. “My mother refused to send me to the Circle even after I single-handedly _murdered_ half of Redcliffe. Not seeing one little girl before her parents kill her with negligence and pride isn’t going to make a difference in what I have to _live with!_ ”

“I don’t believe that for a _minute_ ,” Carver spat back at him, stepping closer and pointing at him threateningly, face twisted and the taint beginning to burn down the back of Connor’s neck. “You, Connor Guerrin, not give a shit whether your own sister lives or dies? She’s a _child_.”

“I’m not going to just _leave_ the Wardens to-”

“ _Where_ between Creation and the Fade did you get the idea that Surana will kick you out of the Order for just taking leave to see your own family!?” Carver bellowed over him and tried to blow back Connor’s anger, but that just made the taint ring in his ears and the white flames of his temper surged back over and catch on him, devour him. The anger took Carver’s confidence and burned it to black arrogance, braised his craftsman’s hands to a thug’s heavy fists, charred his good humour and left behind just the tattered boasts and bravado. “A month or two to help them, to go back and just see what in Andraste’s Sacred Name they _want!_ If a child dies because you didn’t fucking want to put up with seeing your own _life-giving **mother** , _then you’re just as negligent as they are!”

“You _helped_ me in Amaranthine!”

“Because Perth thought you wanted help and then got turned around when you didn’t! Of course I fucking supported you then but now if you _dare_ -”

“ _If?_ ” He let the word slash through Carver’s threat, through the _condition_ that supposedly went over his _help_. His _support_. His _friendship_. “ _If I **what?**_ ” Connor demanded, loudly, all pretense of fear or humiliation gone from him in the wake of the _inferno_ roaring through him at Carver’s _gall!_ “If I dare defend the right to my own _fucking life_ free of those people-!”

“ _Your family!_ ” Carver screamed. “The only one you get! If you think life at the Vigil is worth killing your own sister for then you don’t _fucking deserve to be here!_ ” Connor punched him. He put all his weight behind it and the taint slammed his fist into Carver’s face. The blow was enough to snap his head and make him stagger, but Carver’s move to straighten up masked his clenched fist swinging hard and straight into Connor’s ribs, shocking him with the thunder of pain before he slammed into the desk behind him, scattering books and dropping them to the floor.

“ _Wardens!”_ Fury made his hands roar with flames he flung in a white jet at Carver’s head- and then something bludgeoned him from the side and Connor fell. Weight grabbed and pinned him hard: two knees trapping his arms by bearing down right on his elbows. When he could see through the smoke and the heavy hit he saw Sigrun on top of him holding one of Hawke’s books over her head, ready to bludgeon him with it.

“ _Don’t-_ ” she grunted through clenched teeth, “-make me hit you again.”

The taint was still roaring through him and his anger was still far from spent: Warden Sigrun hit him so hard Connor’s vision blacked out for a few seconds. On the floor nearby, swearing and cussing, were Carver’s boots and Nathaniel’s outraged voice as he wrenched the other Warden’s arm out of place to get his compliance.

He had never been disciplined for anything at Vigil’s Keep. Connor had never broken rules, never made a public embarrassment of himself when drunk, never threatened or _started a fight_ with another Grey Warden. Never used his magic so _recklessly_ …

Connor spent his last night at Vigil’s Keep locked in a plain stone cell he knew, he just _knew_ , normally housed drunken soldiers when they couldn’t control themselves. It had a thick wooden door with a barred window. It had one tiny arrow-slit for light up too high for him to reach anyways. There was a pile of blankets damp with something foul-smelling for him to sit on. He wasn’t bound or chained or stripped and splashed with water like a mad drunk might have been, but he was locked in and if he dared break out there would be hell to pay.

Half the Keep had heard their screaming match through Hawke’s open door. Not everyone had been in their rooms to hear it clearly, but people’s beds didn’t just spontaneously erupt into flames and having a mage shoved in the Vigil’s drunk tank explained things well enough.

It wasn’t the Warden Commander who came to yell through the window at them for several minutes and then scold the two Wardens individually, it was Nathaniel. Connor honestly thought things wouldn’t get worse than that until Jylan showed up. It took him a very long time to realize he was even there because the Tranquil didn’t say anything, just stood at the door and _watched_.

“Don’t you have work to be doing?” Connor asked, still _humming_ with anger and speaking from the cold damp corner of his cell.

“You started a fight.” Jylan reported. “It is unlike you.”

“And the man I fought is in the cell beside-”

“The man you fought is a close and intimate friend.” The elf interrupted. “That you would fight _him_ is also unlike you.”

“Jylan, leave it alone.”

“Leaving it alone will not resolve the underlying issue. You are not yourself. It is troubling.”

“And you’re _Tranquil_ ,” Connor told him bitterly. “You’re not _troubled_ by anything because you can’t _care_ about anything. Go back to the workshop, Jylan.”

“He’s here because the evening bell already rang, you _tit_.” Hawke’s voice snaked viciously through the dark underbelly of the Keep: their cells were right next to each other so even when Connor grabbed the bars in the door’s cut-out, he couldn’t see the other Warden in the dark. “And if anyone else in the Vigil spoke to him like that you’d rip their fucking heads off: _hypocrite!_ ”

“Please do not-”

“Did I ask for your fucking input!” Connor shouted. He and Hawke both said a great deal more by the time Jylan silently left and brought Oghren down to shout at both of them to shut up or risk being treated like actual drunks: stripped, soaked, and left to wear through the night without food.

His last dinner before dispatch was bread and water, shoved through the window bars. He suffered the night and cold and silence and told Carver to _fuck off_ when the other Warden woke him up to try and say some inane, friendly thing in the middle of the freezing night. His last breakfast at dawn was more of the same stale bread, but he ate it and was grateful for the fact that he could bathe, change, and quickly stuff his saddlebags before the ride to Denerim.

It was four cold, rainy days from Vigil’s Keep to the Fereldan capital. Even if the weather was bad at least the road was good, so the six Grey Wardens were able to keep a decent pace under the rolling grey sky. Connor knew the value of his magic when they spent their first night in a farmer’s barn and had clothes and bedrolls in need of drying. The second night saw them in a rainy glade with tent canvas strung up between tree branches and Connor’s will focused on keeping the fire burning stubbornly through the cold drizzle. The third night they sheltered in a chantry in exchange for a sizeable ‘ _donation_ ’ on account of Connor’s staff and An’eth’s tattoos. They would reach Denerim’s gates in the morning.

“You have to talk to him eventually.” Evie told him softly that evening, the rain falling hard on the chantry’s wood-shingle roof and sucking the warmth from the incense-heavy hair.

“I know.”

Connor had spent the last three days riding with Hassick and An’eth, letting Evie, Nathaniel and Carver ride ahead and keep to themselves. An’eth had passed the time asking questions about Denerim, if it would be as big or as loud or as noisy or as full as Amaranthine, and Hassick had been very animated about saying yes to all four questions. For Connor, stuck in the middle, he had just watched the three Wardens ahead of them for the whole stupid, sullen, rain-soaked ride. Yes, he wanted to see Evie more, but they were on the road and there had to be a certain distance. He also wanted nothing to do with Carver.

 But Evie’d sat with him at evening meals and rolled her bedding out next to his at night, so that was enough. And standing together in front of one of the chantry’s statues of Andraste, she threaded her fingers through his and it made him feel warm inside- something he was especially grateful for after the cold rain and wind of the road.

“He’s my friend,” Connor finished. But he was still allowed to be mad at Carver Hawke.

“Then act like it,” she told him bluntly, her voice soft to respect the low light and solemnity of the Chantry. Her fingers twisted and squeezed his and Connor- “Friends argue, they fight, and they can stay angry. These things are normal, _cher_ , but there is also a line that was crossed this time.”

Connor felt shame wrestle his heart down, the heaviness pooling in the chambers of the beating organ and pulling, pulling, pulling until it was pressing hard against his stomach. The calm way Evie was looking at him didn’t help his efforts to fend off the negative emotions either: she was waiting for what he’d known would come up to soak its way through his stubborn pride. It was one thing to throw a punch in the middle of an argument, but it was something else all together to use _magic_ against his own _friend._

“ _There_ you are.” He didn’t understand. Evie blinked her dark eyes slowly and let her full, soft lips pull in a gentle smile. “I was wondering when this battlemage would give my Warden back to me.” Connor was thankful for the low light of the chantry, because he went _scarlet_. ‘ ** _My_ **_Warden_ ’ she’d said. “You are strong, _mon cher_ , strong enough to know when you are wrong. For the rest of the argument, I do not care to involve myself: I have heard Carver’s side and I have heard yours. But we all know your fire is not meant for things like this.” Connor took a quiet breath in the hallowed space.

“I’m not ready to forgive what was said,” he whispered softly. “But… my actions were uncalled for. It was wrong.” Evie gazed at him with enough warmth and sympathy that Connor hoped she’d just put the conversation aside and let him kiss her again, he wanted that warmth…

 “Carver will not take an apology for reckless magic as an apology for the entire fight,” she assured him. Her fingertips were _warm_ across his cheek and he felt his eyes flutter at the caress. “I am confident that you two can continue to be upset with each other even if you acknowledge one wrong-doing. There will be enough on your shoulders once we reach Denerim, Connor, please remove this weight before we get there tomorrow.”

“Only if I still get to be mad at him after.” Connor said, succeeding in making her smile grow and bring out the apples in her cheeks. She’d braided her beautiful hair back into a flat round bun behind her head before they’d set out from Vigil’s Keep and pinned it with Hawke’s dawnstone gifts, the crystals glowing softly in the firelight around them.

“It is such a shame we are in a chantry tonight,” she sighed, giving him a whimsical look.

“Why’s that?”

“Because how can I kiss you with the Maker’s Bride watching?” They were literally standing in the light of her eternal flame. Connor babbled some embarrassed nonsense that just made Evie squeeze his hand again warmly before they both returned to where the others were taking a quiet, humble dinner at the other end of the chantry hall.

The next morning, after a long quiet night spent curled up on a pew under Andraste’s burning light, Connor made himself apologize for his actions at the Vigil. He _made_ himself. He _forced_ himself. Carver watched him with a stony expression that Connor respected because he’d hardly let the other Warden come within speaking distance of him for four days, and when he was finished the warrior stood there with one hand on his horse’s snout, nearly finished saddling it for the day.

“And for the rest of what was said?” Carver asked.

“I stand by it.” Connor stated. “Every word.”

“So do I, you mageling bastard.” Carver took a breath, teeth bared to say something more and Connor felt his fingers curling into tight fists.

Nathaniel and Hassick got between them before they could throw more than just words. The Junior Warden was quick to take his hands off Connor once the immediate threat of a fight passed, the Senior Warden barking “ _Why do you always do this when **I’m** on point, Hawke!?”_. Nathaniel then got the rest of them saddled and ready to leave the little hamlet behind.

They finally had a break in the rain, the skies grey with smudges of blue barely showing through the heavy veil of potential wet. It improved the company’s mood and so did the fact that Connor had done exactly what Evie’d asked of him: he’d apologized for the _magic_ , not the fight.

Denerim formed through the late morning sunlight slowly, first as just a rising grey building in the south, then as a rusty, golden burn across the horizon. A city full of belching chimneys, yellow stone towers, fortified walls, and the mighty spire of Fort Drakon slowly distinguishing itself against the sky. Denerim spread itself thick and heavy across the delta of the Drakon river, and the city was stacked upon itself so heavily as it cascaded down from Fort Drakon’s high hill that the buildings were in danger of tumbling over one another into the Amaranthine ocean.

Six Grey Wardens was something for the city’s people to take note of even just going through the sprawl built up and spiralling out from the actual city wall. Their armour was distinct, their formation controlled, and Nathaniel only gave the guards at the city’s massive arched gate a nod and salute before they were waved through the crowded, squabbling roadway into the city itself. Denerim may not have revered or been affectionate with Grey Wardens, but the Blight was still remembered in the gouges and seams of fresher-looking plaster and stones repairing the city’s fortifications, and many of the taverns, inns, gambling houses and other sordid places they passed had walls a different stone and colour from the foundations. Wardens were respected and that was enough.

They went to no inn or tavern or highway house: this was Denerim and they were in service to their Commander and their Arl. Their horses took from the muddy dirt lanes of the city to the cobbles and boulevards of the capital’s elevated noble district, and Connor tried to ignore the chill as they passed boldly by the open gates and waving red pennants of House Guerrin behind its wall and gardens. The crests of Denerim and Redcliffe were flying, meaning Connor’s father and uncle were both in residence. It took them some minutes and easy passage for the horses before they came to a stop in front of a set of closed wooden gates in a chest-high stone wall around the perimeter of another grand city house.

Nathaniel beat one hand on the servant’s door cut into the greater face of the gate and a few seconds later a young man in a gold-cut blue tunic opened it, gave them a brilliant smile and then hurried back inside. The bars and bolts holding the gates shut rattled and thunked hard against each other, and then the gates themselves swung open with a slow, angry groan.

“Grey Wardens!” The same young man, no more than sixteen by his fair face and voice, called out to them as he stepped out of the gates’ path and swung his arm towards the great house ahead of them. “Welcome to House Surana, estate of the Arl of Amaranthine. The Seneschal will be expecting you and your horses and belongings shall be well looked after!”

House Surana at a glance was no different from any other great house in Denerim: the high retaining wall, the flower beds hiding more utilitarian kitchen gardens around the sides and back of the estate. It was built with a façade of two towers over a wide mouth leading into the main hall, a peaked roof decorated on the forward face with a large mosaic of the Commander’s herald: Warden Griffon, Amaranthine Bear, and the black spire of Fort Drakon. Connor wondered absently how much it must have grated the neighbourhood and the Landsmeet at large when an Elven Mage had been elevated to Arl, but that man was also the Hero of Ferelden, so he amended the thought as he dismounted.

Inside the house was _clean_. Clearly Kieran Surana did not come here often because the entire place was far, far too clean to ever have to deal with scrambling mabari paws or hoards of young children running the carpets ragged and scuffing the highly polished stone floors. Every knob was polished, window buffed, hinge oiled, and decorative piece meticulously dusted. It was impossible to imagine Vigil’s Keep ever attaining this level of pristine cleanliness: too many people with too much to do, too many mabari and mages and soldiers and servants and pages and clerks and traders and craftsmen. Connor was quite sure the six of them were a crime against the staff’s hard work as their muddy boots spilled dust and grime as they walked inside.

It felt very showy however, not as lived-in as the Commander’s personal apartments at Vigil’s Keep did. Connor only ever saw the office and the salon, but that was enough of a contrast as the Wardens were led through the public parts of the house. Commander Surana ate at his desk, left open books on tables, let his mabari on his wife’s couch, and Maker knew what Kieran got into when no one was watching him. His desk was finely made and the salon’s furniture and fixtures luxurious, but they were used, they had lives.

This. This place felt cold, and not just because of the weather. Fires were burning to keep the rooms warm but there were no signs of ash from frequent use or blackness from constant warmth. The rugs were finely woven but showed no signs of familiar paths walked along them. The floors had the familiar scent of fresh polish on them. None of the furniture or floorboards had scuffs or scratches from normal use. Books were arranged _just so_ on tables and large crystals seemed to crop up in unexpected, very curious formations, none of them magical but more like… pretending to be magical.

Maker the whole house was _staged_. Why did it take him this long to realize? Surana was only ever in residence when he came to attend the Landsmeet, of course his actual _home_ and his capital estate wouldn’t feel the same way. It was so damned quiet here compared to the Vigil that the Commander probably only ever showed up when he needed someplace dead silent to think or he brought enough people to keep him from going insane in the lack of noise.

They finally entered a room that had the decency to look lived-in, a study filled with books and ledgers, fire crackling and sprinkled with ash across the hearth. There were stray papers and a happy fat orange cat sprawled luxuriously over the blanket-covered legs of a sleeping old man. He had his mouth cracked open and was snoring comfortably, twisted old hands resting on the cat’s ginger back where he’d been stroking it before nodding off.

The servant who’d led them this far seemed alarmed by the seneschal’s condition, but Nathaniel hushed the boy before he could say anything, stepping forward and with his bare hands giving the cat a quick stroke behind one ear. The cat shook its head with a soft trill as it woke up, and when Nathaniel touched it again he uttered _‘Off with you, Ser Pounce._ ’ The offended animal picked itself up, arched its back up impossibly high and jumped from the chair to the desk adjacent to it, waking up the old man in the process.

“Ah-? Ah! Young Master Howe…” The old man’s face broke into a warm, tender smile, and he took Nathaniel’s hand in both of his. “Have I slept the whole day away? Maker Be Praised, I’m too old for this.”

“Are you not enjoying your retirement, Seneschal Varel?” Nathaniel asked with a warmth Connor had assumed was only reserved for his sister’s children and his wife.

“Seneschal my foot, I chase dust-bunnies for a living now. Or rather, Ser Pounce does.” He then looked at the hand he was holding, gave it a curious stare, and then tugged Nathaniel’s fingers around, examining at the blood-writing from his Dalish wedding. “What’s all this you’ve got on you now? Some sort of magic thing?” Nathaniel looked about for another chair, gave a tender laugh, and sat down across from Master Varel who seemed to know him incredibly well.

Connor and the others didn’t have to stand through the entire visit. Varel, he soon discovered, was the Vigil’s former Seneschal who had passed the duties to Garevel before retiring to Denerim. The servants called him Seneschal out of habit but he wasn’t even Chamberlain- that honour went to a friendly but strict elven woman they didn’t meet until later that afternoon, after they’d all been settled into neat, pristine, meticulously arranged rooms on the estate’s second floor.

Chamberlain Shianni wore a deceptively simple dress and apron of soft Amaranthine yellow and grey, but when she moved through the light properly Connor saw the sparkle of silver and gold thread, and the braided leather belt cinching the waist under her full-length apron bore finely polished stones. She was talkative and bright, kept the other servants in line and on top of even the smallest mess left anywhere in the house, but had a friendly air that calmed the strict edge of her standards.

She confirmed quite openly that the Arl was very set on how he wanted the estate to look, and he paid well despite the self-described ‘ _boring_ ’ job. Tending an empty house left many empty hours in the day, but she filled them with her work in the city’s alienage.

“If he were a shem I don’t know if I would have taken the position,” Connor overheard her saying to An’eth that evening. The hunter was curious about the other red-head’s position and the way elves lived in the city. “But the Arl is good to my family. He rescued my cousin Soris from the old Arl of Denerim before running the former master of _this_ house through with a sword during the Blight. Two snakes with one swing, I say. The debt we owe him in the Alienage is a huge one even without considering how much my pay here lets my family do for others who struggle.”

“Do you think it would be possible for me to visit the city elves?” An’eth asked, her curiosity piqued about this the same way it had been about Jylan. “Just for a day, if Warden Howe gives me permission?”

“I don’t think that would be a problem, you’re a Grey Warden: the city guards won’t bother you for being an elf with a sword.” An’eth was both shocked and offended to learn that the city’s elves couldn’t bear weapons openly, but Chamberlain Shianni hushed her and showed her something in the lining of her apron that calmed An’eth down. It even made the hunter hum softly in approval.

Connor made a mental note not to do anything at all to warrant him meeting whatever sharp and deadly thing was sewn into the Chamberlain’s fine clothes. If it had come from the Warden Commander then it probably involved enough primal magic folded into the steel to make Connor’s scarred face itch.

Chamberlain Shianni had notices dispatched to King Alistair’s court by nightfall, giving Connor absolutely no way out of making an appearance at the palace tomorrow with the other Wardens. Nathaniel gave him a declaration from the Warden Commander reminding the nobles of Ferelden to remain ever vigilant against Darkspawn sightings and inviting them without hesitation to turn to the Grey Wardens of Ferelden at the earliest signs of Darkspawn activity.

It felt like nothing but fluff and hot air to appease the King’s demand that Connor show up in Denerim with something to disguise the ugly fact that this was an unwanted family reunion. Nathaniel told him to practice it and to make sure his armour and staff were polished to perfection for tomorrow. In fact, they _all_ had to polish their armour, every last bead and link and panel of silverite, and the six of them sat in one of the sterile salons by the roaring fire to do the tedious work. Crystal decanters of wine that felt far too delicate for normal use gave them something to sip on, platters of bread and cured meat providing an after-dinner snack as they went through the mundane work.

An’eth did most of the talking to Chamberlain Shianni, who had several important letters to write from her little desk in the corner of the room. Connor worked his fingers numb over the bumps and nods of his quilted silverite armour, buffing his pauldron and its griffon feathers to a blinding shine, but at least there was talk to numb the monotony. His armour also had significantly less silverite visible in it than anyone else, so he took Evie’s shield from her while she laboured over the dozens of little flaps that made up her scaled skirt. Her smile alone was enough thanks.

He then sat there in shock as Chamberlain Shianni recalled how Tevinter _slavers_ had been brought into Denerim by Teyrn Loghain during the Blight to fund his civil war. He expected a horror story and truly most of it was: many people taken had _never_ been found again. But like any good story there was one brilliant part to it, and that was how Warden Commander Surana had been singled out by the slavers, told he looked ill, and he had then alarmed his own companions by pretending to faint. Connor wondered if he would ever dare ask Zevran if Shianni’s version of events was true to life, because according to her it was a near thing he and the Commander’s Qunari ally hadn’t started taking Tevinter heads the moment they put their hands on Surana and dragged him away.

The screams and shocks of light from inside the building had been enough to scare away the alienage’s denizens. Connor was more relieved than surprised when the story ended with Surana opening the door to let out the smoke of his own fire, four dozen men dead at his feet. Connor knew the way these stories were told however and was willing to hazard a guess that the real number had been closer to six or seven men in all.

But it was also Warden Commander Surana. Four dozen wasn’t _that_ hard to believe.

Connor did not speak to Carver again before turning in for the night. He did speak to Hassick, who tried to encourage him that maybe tomorrow wouldn’t be so bad and they’d be on their way to Vigil’s Keep again in a few days? At least he tried. But Connor didn’t go to sleep right away as he read and re-read the polite address for the court, knowing he probably wouldn’t actually have to say it but he went over it again just in-case. He didn’t want to sleep. He knew he would have to, but he didn’t want to, but he really should, except it just felt like such a bad idea.

He would set wards on himself tonight. And he re-read the address again to keep his mind from wandering down all the reasons _why_ he would set wards. All the _things_ he didn’t want to _think_ about but knew he probably _would_ even if he didn’t _want to_.

Connor rose at the soft knock on his door, curious but pleased when he found Evie on the other side and he invited her in out of the cold, lifeless hallway. She was wearing a furry Ferelden housecoat to banish the chill of early winter, soft shoes provided by the house and the edge of sleeping linens kicking at the hem of the warm robe.

“Can you not sleep? Your light is still burning and you aren’t even dressed for bed yet.” No, he was still in the tunic and trousers he’d pulled on after his bath. “Go change! However badly you think tomorrow will go, it will be worse if you are tired.”

“I-” There were too many things to respond to, but the one Connor’s fatigued mind latched on to was: “What-? Just change with you standing here?”

“Why not?” She asked him with a particularly Orlesian nonchalance. “I was with you on the Approach and in the hold of two ships. There is very little of _any_ of you I have not seen before, _mon cher_.”

“That… is the least reassuring thing you’ve ever said to me.” Connor admitted, feeling dizzy.

“It is late and you must rest for tomorrow, Connor,” she told him in a caring way. But then, with a smile that made him most uncomfortable she said: “Even if I have to tire you out _myself_ , you are going to sleep.”

The anxiety running through him about tomorrow ramped up, mouth dry and heart squeezing hard and awkward in his chest. Why would she even _suggest_ that when he-?

“Um, no- no thank you,” he croaked. The nerves crawling up his back redoubled when he saw his answer surprise her. It was subtle, just the way she pulled her smile back, a curious drop to one shoulder, Evie curled and then licked her lips as a hesitation, and Connor realized oh no, oh no he’d offended her. He hadn’t meant- what _had_ he meant?

“Perhaps I should-” she indicated the door and Connor quickly jumped to take her hand because no, no please don’t be upset with him.

“No, Evie wait- I’m sorry.” The words tripped out of his mouth but they were enough to stop her, his hand clasping hers and the other reaching out to hold her arm and make sure she faced him. She did, Evie didn’t pull away from him or seem upset, but she was quiet and guarded and it was _his fault_. “I’m sorry, please stay. I’m glad you came to see me.” 

Evie sighed, rolling her shoulders in a bid to reclaim some of that nonchalance. Connor’s anxious feelings abated when she reached up and stroked his face, shaking her head with an admonishing look for him. Oh please, let her lean down a little and press her lips to his…

“I didn’t come here to upset you, _cher_. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay- I’m not upset, just stay, please?”

“You have a very strange relationship with intimacy, don’t you?” She tilted her head at him and Connor wasn’t sure what she meant, but she did slide closer to him and allow Connor’s arms to link around her waist, something he was very happy about as she crossed her arms lazily over his shoulders, touching her forehead to his so warmly, so kindly…

“What do you mean?”

“A week ago the thought of kissing me terrified you, but now look how happy you are?” He _was_ happy, and Connor _was_ going to kiss her. “And yet I thought your heart would stop at the mere mention of… _other_ things. You didn’t look scared, you seemed _baffled?_ ” No, hush, he didn’t want to talk about that: he wanted to _kiss her_.

“What’s so strange about being too nervous to kiss someone for the first time?” Connor asked, and then he did kiss her. He had to look up and convince her with a brush of his nose against hers, but he kissed her and felt Evie hum softly before her lips spread in a smile. “And I get to hold your hands almost any time I want, and even travelling we sleep close enough together that I can hear that little sound you make when you stretch and wake up in the morning.” He looked at her and saw the quiet surprise lingering in her eyes, so he twisted his arms a little more around her and made her smile spread wider. “You let me help with your hair and we share wine together, isn’t that intimacy too?”

“But is that enough for you?” Evie asked him, stroking her fingers slowly back through his hair.

“Is it _not_ for you?” Um- oh, Connor hadn’t thought of this before. He didn’t know how this conversation was supposed to go.

“Can we discuss this in bed?” Evie suggested, but she wasn’t coy or flirty about it, she said it about as seriously as Connor imagined she could with his arms around her and the awkward topic between them. “I meant what I said about you needing your sleep.”

“Will you stay?”

“I will stay, and we will talk.” But first Connor had to change and tell himself it wasn’t awkward feeling Evie’s eyes on his back as he stripped off the heavy wool of his tunic and thick hide breeches. He changed into softer sleeping clothes he’d brought from Vigil’s Keep. The fire was still burning warmly and the bed was comfortable for two, Evie inviting herself to bed before Connor followed, pleased with the way she settled in his arms.

And then they had the most embarrassing conversation of Connor’s adult life.

“I’ve never had a lover before, Evie.”

“I know that, but you’re not ignorant either.”

“I spent an entire war in a tent city. I’ve seen, heard, and _smelled_ more than I ever needed to… Why is that funny to you?” At least he could still make her laugh.

“Aren’t you curious about what all the fuss is for?”

“Not really? It was just a lot of people making themselves feel vulnerable and awkward and then crying about it later.”

“So if I simply took off this robe and laid down next to you, it wouldn’t bother you?”

“Of course it would bother me: you handle Fereldan cold about as well as I did Orlais’ heat.”

“The Approach is a Blight-scarred desert and hardly indicative of my entire homeland, _mon cher_.”

“Amaranthine is the warmest part of Ferelden and you already have your winter quilts out.”

“But I would have _you_ to keep me warm this time.”

“I’m going to be here either way!” And then, when her smile made his face burn and his heart squeeze hard again, her fingers toying with the ties at the throat of her dressing gown: “ _Non, ma chérie- s’il vous plait, Evie!”_

His plea made her laugh and then lean down in bed to kiss him, her clothed body draped over his and cuddling down warm and heavy on him. When he hugged her he could feel the strong muscles of her back and the thick strength of her shoulders. She smelled like the bath salts provided by the house and she’d roughly twisted her thick hair back into its braid after cleansing it of the road. She purred to him about his own hair looking long and loose down the back of his neck, but he ignored her with a grunt and found her lips again with his.

He forgot to set wards against the bad dreams Denerim might inspire. But it was okay. He fell asleep and stayed safely tangled with his lady love until morning. His lips smiled against her skin when she awoke with a slow, lazy stretch and a soft little grunt in her throat, and he was content.

Now all he had to do was get through today, and then they could go home and get on with their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeeeey, romance!
> 
> And because I did, actually, discuss this a fair bit on Tumblr while putting this story together: Connor is being written as Ace. Not sex-repulsed, which is very much a thing, but more the “just because I see the donut doesn’t mean I want to eat the donut. Just because it’s available doesn’t mean I ever think to myself ‘I want that’” variety.
> 
> I can easily, easily, easily gush about my thoughts on Connor and intimacy and relationships, but I’d rather not clutter the Author’s notes with it. Be back with chapter 19 soon so drop a comment in the box and if you wanna chat, we can!


	19. Strong Walls, Weak Hearts

Castle Denerim was not a palace like the alabaster balconies and golden towers of Val Royeaux. It was a strong, brutal, sheer-faced behemoth sitting on the hill under Fort Drakon’s shadow. High walls and strong towers, a bleak face of yellow stone blocks hefted into place by generations of stubborn alamarri lords eager to keep the Tevinter-age tower and wealthy natural harbour under their control. The castle was close enough to the noble houses that the Grey Wardens walked from House Surana to the seat of House Theirin.

Hoods up, helmets on, polished armour resisting the steady drizzle of cold autumn rain. Nathaniel distinguished himself as leader by wearing a thickly woven blue cloak edged in grey, clasped at the shoulder with a great medallion of hammered silver. Not silverite, silver.

They were granted access to the wide wooden bridge across the gully of the castle’s thirty-foot deep moat, and from there allowed to pass into the rain-drenched courtyard where the royal stables and forge were busy despite the foul weather. On flag poles around the courtyard were all the pennants and banners of the nobles in attendance at court. Denerim and Redcliffe stood distinct as the only two Arlings, Amaranthine and the other three missing, along with the second-tallest flag meant for the Teyrnir of Highever. The rearing red dogs of Ferelden and green dragon of Gwaren took central stage of course. The Dogs of House Theirin, the Dragon of House Mac Tir; the King and Queen of the realm. The Wardens moved up the stone steps to the massive doors, and finally out of the rain into the vaulted, meticulously carved belly of the great fortress.

Torches, candles, braziers, hearth fires: everywhere they moved through the keep there was light and chatter. Lesser nobles and important clerks, master archivists and one or two people wearing mage robes. Inquisition scouts and officers, chantry mothers and sisters, ash warriors with their painted bodies and attending hounds: the castle was full of people, and the people calmed Connor’s nerves.

Connor trusted Nathaniel to know where they needed to go. He’d already given them a quick and dirty explanation of what was expected of them, who to bow to and how to behave. The lecture hadn’t just been for Evie and An’eth’s benefit either. Hassick had been raised in Denerim but strictly in the lower market district. Hawke and Connor didn’t have enough courtly experience for their noble blood to make a single difference in what they thought they knew.

According to Nathaniel: everything in Denerim revolved around currying favour from the throne. House Guerrin had a monopoly on King Alistair’s favour to the point where His Majesty referred to Connor’s father and uncle as his own _‘uncles’_ in formal conversation, but this was balanced by the respect His Majesty had for Her Majesty Queen Anora, who _hated_ House Guerrin. She was not open about it, but House Guerrin had spearheaded the violent civil war against Teyrn Loghain during the Blight, and then Connor’s father had fought hard to throw her off her throne. Only the Hero of Ferelden’s say-so had kept Anora in power and he’d done that holding a sword dripping with her own father’s blood.

“You want to know why Zevran guards Surana’s back so closely every time they come here?” Nathaniel muttered to Connor as they walked. “It’s because he upsets too many people simply by existing. He’s the King’s best friend, he’s never called in the debt owed by the Queen, and Her Majesty owes a favour to the man who killed her father.” And sadly that did sound like a good way to make enemies in a royal court.

There was laughter and loud, carousing noise building somewhere through the winding halls. Wood-smoke filtered through the cool air, fighting with the damp from the rain outside and causing a thick, salty something to cake the back of Connor’s throat as he breathed it in. They reached a great pair of double doors and a servant in a blood-red doublet paused them to hear their address and business at court, then quickly announced them to the loud, jostling host of the throne room.

“The Grey Wardens of Amaranthine, by the hand of the Warden Commander of Ferelden, come to address the First of the Bannorn, Lord of the Landsmeet, Commander of the Arls, Master of the Teyrns, the King of Ferelden!”

They were not asked nor made to turn over any weapons: every person here was armed from the crier himself to the lords and ladies. They walked and the crowd parted, though hardly anyone stopped their conversations to take proper note of the Wardens. Connor couldn’t tell if they walked in-step because they could hear a drum line from Nathaniel’s heels to theirs, or if it was just his own heart hammering too loudly in his chest.

“I agree, I agree, and I still agree,” The person they came to see was atop a stone dais littered with conversing groups and knots of important people. He was seated on a wide wooden throne flanked by two carved mabari and two very real ones panting at his booted feet. Next to him on a throne taller than it was wide sat a beautiful woman with thickly braided blonde hair and a gown of woven white leather, soft hide and ribs of corded brown velvet circling her waist as she regarded a trio of clerks speaking rapidly in hushed breaths. Queen Anora of Ferelden had a tight, thin face that seemed soured by the smoky air around her, but at her side King Alistair was practically flung over the arm of his throne. “But I’ve been waiting almost ten days for the address that just walked through the doors, my lord, so while I agree, we’ll simply have to finish this later.”

“As you command, my king.” The minor Bann seemed disappointed by the dismissal, but took it politely.

“But I do agree with you!” King Alistair Theirin, former Grey Warden and Connor’s almost-cousin, called brightly after him, one hand raised and pointing between himself and the nobleman as he continued to speak. “Be sure to remind me of it! Because it’s a good idea! I like it- _really!_ ” He looked down the dais towards the Wardens and he _grinned_.

“Maker, I do love statecraft.” King Alistair was a strong man, thick in shoulder and trunk but with none of the softness that would suggest a noble who lounged about all day doing nothing but gossip and eat. His legs were long and heavy and even when he slouched in his throne his height was obvious. His cheeks and most of his jaw were shaved clean but a tangled blond beard had dressed itself around his lips and down his chin, though it didn’t do much to hide his beaming smile as he rubbed one hand over his mouth and then grinned again at the Wardens. He sat up properly and threw his arms in the air with a laugh.

“You finally arrive!” he shouted, his voice ignored by the talk and clamour around him. “I _finally_ get an answer from Amaranthine! Forgive me: I would stand and greet you but manners would dictate the entire hall be called to heel and watch us, and I quite like the busy-busy of a good winter’s morning. Come closer, come closer, it’s not like any of us up here bite- well…” He cast a quiet look at his Queen next to him, then regarded their company again with a wince.

“Pretend I didn’t just do that, it’s a very dangerous joke and not one worth dying for.” He told them in a very serious voice, but then beckoned them again to come closer and Connor stuck dead behind Nathaniel as the Senior Warden mounted the steps of the dais to approach his king. King Alistair put up his hands, fingers wiggling like a child showing off his clean nails, and Nathaniel kissed the thick gold ring over one knuckle.

“The Warden Commander sends his highest regards, your majesty.”

“The Warden Commander sends me wishes of severe indigestion and _fleas_ , but that’s alright because he’s very short and very sensitive about it.” Connor stared blankly at the back of Nathaniel’s shoulders, trying to figure out if it was okay to find that comment funny or not. “But unless that’s him hiding behind you, then you’ve got a new _mage_ in the Order and I…”

His Royal Highness the _King of Ferelden_ leaned so far over the arm of his throne that Connor had to fight with himself not to shuffle the other way and remain hidden behind Nathaniel. But the Senior Warden knew how fruitless any attempts to dissuade His Majesty were and dutifully stepped to the side, presenting Connor like a contest ram.

The King stared slack-jawed with a disbelieving smile on his face, eyes growing significantly wider as he slouched back in his throne again, running both hands back through his short blond hair as if in amazement. Connor didn’t know what he was supposed to do beyond place one fist against his heart and bow his head. When he looked back up the King was pawing gently at his queen’s arm until Her Majesty looked at him coldly.

“Forgive your boorish husband, my Queen, but I can’t do this sitting down.”

The Queen’s condition was something about a tax for somesuch, and the King’s response was to look at the three men she’d been conversing with and in short order:

“It’s a fucking stupid idea.” The King announced in straight, simple terms “If you won’t listen to your Queen and Teyrna graciously tell you why it’s a stupid idea then listen to me tell you no, fuck no, fucking hell no, and fuck off with it.” The three men did not like this, but the Queen certainly did and the clerks were forced to take their leave with the dismissal. Queen Anora’s face seemed satisfied, and her pale eyes rolled over the Wardens curiously, but with a hint of disdain curling them by the end.

“ _Now_ may I stand?” The King asked her, “Pretty please? You know how much Surana hates the fact that this meeting is happening, let me savour it? For both of us?” The Queen sighed slow and bitterly, rolling her narrow shoulders back and sitting straight in her throne. One of the mabari resting on the dais immediately got up and placed both front paws on the arm of her throne, panting at the Queen until she let her hand curl and rub over its head and between both pointed ears.

“As My King desires,” she assented, and King Alistair leaned over to peck her cheek and leave her looking slightly less cross than before.

“Good because my ass is falling asleep-” He pushed off with his arms and rose to his feet with a grunt, his own mabari standing and giving an excited woof, stubby tail wagging and jowls dripping. The quiet rippled out from his very boots as the Master of the Hall rose and all attention was turned to him and his upraised arms. “Lords, Ladies, and Freemen of all walks! Let the good business of the day continue. Your Grey Wardens have brought much-anticipated news from Amaranthine, and your king would have them speak openly and in comfort! Carry on before your wise queen, and be well.”

Knees were bent to the King as he dismissed himself from court, the chatter resuming at a lower volume as the Grey Wardens followed him from the hall. King Alistair moved through several winding corridors before the reached a grand study with a long table and many assorted chairs, the high windows showing the rainy city-scape and a muddled view of the morning harbour. His Majesty kept them all standing around the table, the doors open behind them, and wore a gleeful grin for all of them. He seemed a lot less like a king and more an eager host as he started addressing them.

“Nathaniel Howe! Now I can greet you properly, see?” He clasped hands with Howe and smacked his shoulder, moving on to Hawke and not getting his name right until Carver removed his helmet and showed his face. An’eth and Evie followed suit, but Nathaniel’s hood remained in place and Connor followed the Senior Warden’s lead by keeping his own cowl up. His stomach started twisting painfully when King Alistair passed him over with a deliberate grin.

“Bouclier? He’s got stones sending an Orlesian Warden here, but that’s his business I guess. You’re not one of the rebellious ones? No? Good.” Evie was much more confused by the questions than ready to be offended by them.

“Maker be _Praised_ , Lanaya finally got him to Join a hunter! Blessings and safe travels to your clan, how are you finding Denerim?” An’eth seemed pleasantly surprised by His Majesty’s attention as well, although it was the last Warden in the party who had the most confusing experience.

“Hassick?” King Alistair repeated, “Meelo Hassick?” The Junior Warden was outright shocked when His Majesty knew his first name without Hassick giving it. “Maker, how does he _find_ you people?”

“Your Highness? I- how do you-?”

“No no, I’ve a rule about only horribly embarrassing one Grey Warden at a time when companies come to Denerim.” His Majesty brushed aside his own strange comment and Hassick’s confusion, gesturing with an open hand at Connor. “And as entertaining as my answer to your question would be, I’ve got a cousin in need of some humiliation.”

“That’s… very thoughtful of you, your Majesty,” Hassick marvelled. Connor whimpered, dread creeping over his shoulders as the King of Ferelden walked to stand in front of him, face split wide open with a grin, and he opened his mouth with a great laugh and both arms up like he meant to-

“ _Look how big you’ve grown!_ ” Connor was swept up in a _hug_ and felt the horror crack over his face, arms pinned and feet scuffling the floor trying not to _leave it_ as he was dragged and squeezed and _hugged_ and-

“Majesty-!” He gasped- put him _down!_

Connor was dropped out of the hug and stared straight down at the floor, paralyzed by what had just happened.

“Are you embarrassed now?” The King asked him, and Connor mutely nodded. Yes. Yes, he was completely and thoroughly embarrassed and he wanted to turn to ash and blow away now. “Maker, I haven’t seen you since you were this weedy little ten-year-old! Look at this! Look! You’re only so much shorter than I am! This is the most fabulous thing I’ve ever seen! Connor Guerrin, a Grey Warden!” He clapped Connor hard on his unarmoured shoulder, trying to get him to look up again, and Connor very hesitantly pulled his head up until he could see King Alistair’s _giddy_ expression.

“I know- _I know_ , your parents are, shall we say, _less than thrilled_ with your choice of profession. But in _my_ royal opinion:” the King dropped his voice down to a loud whisper: “ _It was the best thing I’d heard in months. Don’t tell Surana._ ” That admission, funny as the King probably intended it, was enough to make Connor speak.

“You… approve?” He asked, bewildered. His Majesty gave a loud guffaw and then his hands-

 _‘Obviously! I too was a Grey Warden once.’_ Not fast or smooth, but still clear despite being out of practice. _‘There were three of us at the Battle of Denerim: Me,’_ And then he signed the letters for the names: “ _S-o-r-e-n, and Warden R-i-o-r-d-a-n.’_ And with a quick gesture to Evie, who was paying as close attention to this as the others, _‘Riordan was Orlesian, he fought and died bravely against the Archdemon._ ’

Evie thoughtfully signed her thanks to His Majesty the King, and Connor was surprised when the former Warden continued with the quiet signs instead of speaking again. He probably didn’t get to use his hands to talk very often anymore.

 _‘Right, to business.’_ His hands were already moving faster. ‘ _You. Why is Surana keeping you away from your family?’_

 _‘He isn’t.’_ Connor answered bluntly, _‘I didn’t want to come.’_

_‘Why not?’_

_‘Because Vigil’s Keep is my home.’_

“Poetic,” the King said, his voice surprising after the quiet. “But not what I- right.” He moved his hands again to repeat himself, adding: _‘But not good enough. Really why not?’_

_‘My mother has been rude and is hiding something.’_

_‘Surana ran Arl Teagan out of Vigil’s Keep when he went to speak with you, you know.’_ Connor gave the King a shrewd look, signing at the same time.

_‘No. That was me.’_

“What!?”

Nathaniel cleared his throat next to Connor and then let his own hands start to travel and spin the story together. He explained the whole thing to the King, who was startled and confused by their version of the story. His discomfort ran deeper when Connor added that his family hadn’t told him about the existence of their second child, but it retreated to a kind of quiet sadness when he explained that Surana had broken the news to him after the Arl of Redcliffe’s messy departure.

“I didn’t believe Soren when he told me you didn’t know.” The King spoke again, and this time he kept the conversation verbal. “I thought he was just exaggerating or making assumptions, but now I’ve got you standing in front of me telling me the same thing. I don’t know what to tell you, Warden Guerrin, I’m sorry.” Connor sighed and felt himself relaxing a little.

“At least you use my title properly, Your Majesty. That’s more than anyone from Redcliffe has managed.”

“I don’t get it.” The King admitted, shaking his head sadly. “Rowan knows about _you_. Maker, I helped her write letters to you when you were still at the Circle. Guess I know why you never wrote back now.” Connor felt his temper kindle and forced the heat down into something hard and bitter that he could wall his heart behind. She knew. His little sister knew. She’d grown up in Redcliffe castle just like him: she’d have to have heard the story and known what happened to Connor in the end, heard where he’d gone.

Connor already wanted to leave. Meeting King Alistair hadn’t gone as horribly as he had feared it would: the King was a genial, friendly person. He was talkative and attentive, remembered names, wanted to share stories. He recognized the scars around Connor’s eyes as those from a fire and correctly guessed the culprit, but in a way Connor didn’t like and jumped to correct:

“It was an accident, Your Majesty.” The explosion that had caught Connor’s face, the Veil-fluttering eruption of magic from a spell gone completely awry and backlashing on the mage responsible. “My injuries weren’t severe, not compared to the Hero of Ferelden’s.” Evie and Nathaniel had been there in the Deep Roads, they lent Connor their support with this now.

“Wait, you’re saying you got those in the same what-ever-it-was that had him laid up in Highever for a month?” The King asked once it was all said and done, and Connor nodded. “Well, at least it shows his ability to discriminate friend from foe hasn’t improved over the years. All that fire magic and me in plate armour running out ahead of him: worst, strategy, _ever_.” Connor didn’t know how to respond to that without either making fun of His Majesty or the Warden Commander, so he wisely remained silent.

They heard the footsteps far enough ahead of the two people who entered the study where King Alistair and six Grey Wardens were speaking. Connor’s apprehension came back up to strangle him, making him nauseous with nerves.

For the first few seconds, Connor’s eyes didn’t know the man and woman who entered the study. He didn’t hear how His Majesty addressed them, didn’t know the grey-bearded man with his heavily creased face and proud nose, his body padded with thick leather pleats and warm red cuts of wool and woven hide. He wore gold around his neck and in chains that looped under one shoulder, chips of gold and polished copper twinkling across his heavy leather belt where a wide faced dagger was slung against his side. His hands were bare and feet wrapped in thick fur boots, his eyes clear despite the signs of age bending his proud shoulders. Arl Eamon Guerrin of Denerim had eyes and attention only for the King.

“Who _are_ all of these people?” And the Arlessa who stood next to him ignored her King’s offer that they sit, exclaiming at the sight of the Wardens gathered before her. Connor recognized his mother’s voice by the shrill heave of her words, one thin hand pressed below her throat as her lips curled back and she sought her husband’s elbow, eyes flitting about the room in a great show of fear. “Alistair- send them away! Where is my son? What is the meaning of this?”

Connor’s mother was a small woman, bird-like with her pointed nose and narrow face. Her strawberry blonde hair was worn in a thick and complicated Orlesian braid, several layers of warm, loosely woven wool wrapped around her shoulders and arms like a shawl over the thick wool bodice of a pale gown, her waist girded with woven leather set with polished jade stones clutched by the weave. She’d paneled her gown with dark burgundy wool that fell to the floor, distinguishing herself from her husband’s proud Hinterland leather.

“Now, now, Lady Isolde-” King Alistair tried to be the voice of reason.

“No! This is an insult, where is my boy?” Her reaction made Connor want to wilt. It wasn’t embarrassment this time that kept him quiet, it felt like shame and he kept his hood down over his face. “Does Surana send these thugs to mock me? Are they here as a taunt? You said you would make him stop this torturous game, Your Majesty, and now he defies even-” Carver elbowed Connor to say something and no, he refused. He didn’t want to be here and Evie was on Carver’s other side, snatching his arm before he could shove Connor again.

“None of that is true, Arlessa,” His Majesty tried again. Connor’s father touched his mother’s hand and freed his arm from her grasp. “If you’ll only calm yourself and listen, he’s right-”

“You _promised_ -”

“Connor.” Connor was the only one in the room with his hood still on, he was the only one in the room with a mage’s staff and armour. His father silenced the bickering between his mother and the King by speaking his name, by standing there in front of him, and Connor didn’t resist when his father’s weathered hands pushed back the edge of his hood and let it drop behind his raised head. It felt surreal to stand at exactly the same height as his father.

“Arl Eamon.” Connor’s voice was hushed, kept soft by the warm hands that held his face for several moments, the rough pad of his father’s thumb touching the edge of his scars before his touch fell to Connor’s shoulders and just rested there. If he was looking for something then he found it, because he curled his thin lips together with several slow blinks and nodded to himself, just nodded.

“The Maker is good,” he said in a rough, husky voice. “My son is strong and grown and with a warrior’s proud scars to prove his valour. The Maker is good.” He took a step back from Connor but kept his arms up and wide, turning his hands to suggest… to ask…

Connor stepped forward and embraced his father. The older man took a deep, shaking breath and held him tight, tighter than Connor thought he’d be able to. There was something so cathartic about the warmth, and the strength, and the person who was holding on to him that Connor just closed his eyes and let himself lean into the embrace. He felt well for the first time since getting out of bed that morning, and when his father clapped his back and repeated, _“The Maker is good”_ against his shoulder, they were both able to step away feeling a little better.

“They are not for _valour_ , Eamon!” Connor’s mother pushed between them, her voice wailing and tears beginning to bead and fall. “It’s disfiguring! He was such a beautiful child and _look!”_ She reached up so fast to Connor’s face that he pulled away automatically, one hand up to catch hers before she forced her way through and he had to let go for fear of hurting her frail fingers. “Look at him! Look what this barbaric order has _done_ to him!”

“They don’t come _off_ , mother.” Connor flinched further back this time as her fingers pressed and tried to pinch at the skin too close to his eyes for him to tolerate. When she persisted he stepped away and then caught and pushed both of her hands down. “Stop.”

His refusal caused the Arlessa to burst into sudden, violent sobbing right there in front of everyone. Connor stared at her outburst and then passed over both his father and the King to find Nathaniel, silently begging for any sign of what the Senior Warden thought he should do.

“Your Majesty,” Nathaniel said. “I understand if a company of six Grey Wardens comes as a shock to the Arlessa. My men and I would be willing to wait outside while Warden Guerrin speaks with you and his parents privately.” _No!_ That was not what Connor wanted. He signed no: two fingers and his thumb pinching together. And then when Nathaniel ignored him he signed it again, and then the _King_ ignored him and Connor stood there completely frozen.

“A thoughtful offer, Warden Howe, and one I accept.” His Majesty said. “No need to stand at attention for the whole time either, maybe go find a nice fire and a bit of food to nibble on. I’ll take good care of him in the meantime.” The Wardens filed out of the study and Connor was awkwardly nudged by Carver to step closer to his mother, immediately drawn closer in order to hug the hysterical woman and sooth her tears.

As soon as the door clicked shut her crying stopped, that fact needling Connor as she straightened herself up, face flushed and voice cracking, and hit him with:

“You must come with your father and I to Redcliffe at once.”

“No.” He clicked his teeth together with that answer.

“Connor, this is not a game!” She railed, her hands slipping over the silverite woven down his arms until she grabbed the leather edges of his vambraces, grasping at them like she meant to tear them off him. “This horrible armour, the way you treated Ser Perth, this must end!”

“I’ll stop being stubborn when _you_ stop lying, Lady Isolde.” Connor told her firmly, shaking her hands off of him with a rude snap. His father came and caught her shoulders when she gasped at him for his boldness, but Connor caught both of them with: “How dare you lie to me about the existence of my own sister, lie to His Majesty and the Warden Commander about _not_ telling me, and then turn around with some wild expectation that I owe House Guerrin _anything?_ ”

“Connor!” His father’s face darkened immediately at his tone.

“Alright! _Okay!_ ” King Alistair interrupted before either of them could speak through their shock with him. “Soren’s letters make a lot more sense now! So why don’t we all just take a deep breath, sit down at this nice safe table here, and-”

“Respectfully, Your Highness, I won’t sit down until I know Lady Rowan Guerrin is even _in_ Denerim for me to see.” Connor interrupted the King of Ferelden and, Maker Help Him, he didn’t care.

“Respectfully, Warden Guerrin, _sit the fuck down._ ” King Alistair was having none of his attitude, but Connor didn’t break from where he was staring at his parents. “Eamon, Isolde, to my right.”

Connor pulled his staff off his back and sat with it leaning against his chair, seated at the King’s left where Alistair took the head of the table. He directed Connor’s parents to his right, keeping the width of the table between them. The Arlessa was weeping again into a silk handkerchief but this time Connor hardened his heart: she’d already faked hysteria once and he wasn’t going to let her cry her way out of all the lying. Next to her his father was stone-faced and grim, the warmth from their embrace already forgotten.

“Alright, from the _top_ now and I’m going to be doing most of the talking.” The King announced from his place between them. “I’m going to start with your parents’ side of things as well, because that’s the version of things I know best. Warden Guerrin, are you aware of the increasing interest in seeing your title as Heir of Redcliffe restored?”

Connor’s dread strangled his anger. He remembered the tent city of refugee mages scattered throughout Redcliffe Village. He remembered his uncle Teagan coming to find him, trying to make him come up to the castle. He remembered being shocked by what he’d said, and horrified, and then angry. But right now it was just cold, sticky dread.

“That’s a dead issue.” He said as clearly as he could without letting his voice tremble. “I’ve kept myself away from what’s is going on in Divine Victoria’s Grand Cathedral and have had no direct contact with the College of Enchanters since leaving Skyhold. Whatever reforms they want put forward to protect mage children from noble houses doesn’t apply to me: not after what happened during the Blight. I made that clear to my uncle Teagan at Redcliffe after the death of Divine Justinia.”

“Connor, you must move past this.” His father spoke from across the table and Connor locked his jaw shut. “It is a changing world and your family needs you.”

“ _Please,_ my son,” his mother pleaded. She leaned across the table with hands outstretched but Connor kept his firmly on the arms of his chair. “You must come home.”

“You have Rowan as your Heir.” He told them both, and then: “Now unless your daughter has made a miraculous recovery in the two months since we last exchanged letters, tell me where she is.”

“Recovery from what?” King Alistair interrupted, and Connor saw the discomfort slowly paint itself down both his parents’ faces. His mother wore it vividly with her scared eyes and trembling lips, his father became as a stone, unflinching and remorseless. When his parents offered no answer Connor reached down to the belts at his waist, unbuckling one of the hard cases resting at his thigh and removing the letters from his mother from the protective leather he’d wrapped them in against the rain. He handed them to-

“ _Connor!_ ” His mother gasped, and his father had one hand out to stop him. Connor and King Alistair both froze, the letters suspended between them.

His anger came back.

“Are you lying to me or to your King?” He accused, and then offered the letters again for King Alistair to take. The former Warden took them and flipped quickly over the Seneschal’s dates, alarmed as he muttered that they were from this summer before he started reading them.

“Those are _private-_ ” His mother moaned, eyes rimmed with red from barely held tears.

“Arl Eamon your son asked you a question,” His Majesty stated, eyes running over the script with increasing alarm before he pulled open the next, shorter message, and then the one after that. “Maker’s Breath, what is all this?”

“My King, if I may have a moment alone with my son?” His father asked and Connor sat there, bitter and stewing as King Alistair took several long moments to respond, the letters read and folded back up in front of him.

“Rowan hasn’t been to court since this spring because she’s been ill,” the King said in a confused, wounded voice. “And you _didn’t tell me!_ ”

“Your Majesty-”

“Have you told anyone about this?” Alistair switched to Connor and he nodded.

“Most of the Wardens you met with know, and the Warden Commander has been expecting a summons from you to help with her illness for months now, your Highness.” And then he said it all, again. How Surana was willing to use Connor as a middleman to bring his expertise to bear, how Connor had a Formari compounder in his direct service, how both the Arlessa and Ser Perth _knew all of this_.

King Alistair slammed both hands on the table and stood, fuming down at Connor’s parents.

“And I sent Soren back to Highever at _your suggestion!_ ” He shouted, and Connor watched the Arlessa cover her mouth with one hand, sobs heaving as tears trembled down her pale cheeks. “While on the opposite end of the Bannorn your daughter is wasting away! What kind of scheme are you hatching that sends one of Ferelden’s last Spirit Healers as far away from Rowan as possible! She’s your _daughter!”_

“Alistair, please-”

“Connor is a spirit healer!” His mother wailed, choking back her sobs and trying to speak, “And he is closer, and we trust him more, he-”

“I am not!” Connor shouted, “I’ve never communed with Fade Spirits to help people, are you mad? After what happened the _last time_ I accepted so-called help from across the Veil?”

“You will watch your tone when speaking to your mother, boy!” His father thundered one fist on the table and Connor felt the taint run its thin claws up his spine.

“What was his name? Connor!” The King distracted him, still standing. “The Formari you have at Vigil’s Keep, what’s his name?”

“Jylan Ansera,” Connor answered, “He’s a compounder with direct ties to Guildmaster Owain of Amaranthine.”

“I’ll have Soren remember to bring him along.” His Majesty stated, then rounded on Connor’s father with a snarl. “As requested, _your grace_ , I will leave you to have a private word with your son. Warden Guerrin, I’ll ask you to remain in the capital for a few more days. You’re staying at House Surana with the other Wardens, yes? Good. I’ll let you have the last word here while I go get things moving.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Connor stood as the King made ready to leave the table, his parents a step behind him with the formality. King Alistair left in an angry huff, slamming the doors shut again as he passed and barking something the thick doors muffled.

He took a hot breath to speak his ‘ _last word’_ with but found his mother suddenly crowding in front of him again, babbling at him.

“Connor! You don’t understand what’s happening- you need to go catch up with him and tell Alistair no, you’ll go to Redcliffe instead- Connor _listen to me!_ ” He pushed her hands off of him, disgusted with her frantic attitude and snatching up his staff before she could knock it to the ground.

“Do not _touch_ me,” he hissed. “I won’t do anything you say, nothing you ask, or a single thing to please you.”

“You’ve no idea what you’ve done.” His father growled darkly from across the table.

“And whose fault is that!” Connor shouted back.

“Connor, Rowan is a _mage!_ ” The Arlessa shouted. Connor was still looking at his father, then he- he tried to- he looked back at his father and then down at his mother with her palms together and hands before her face like she was trying to pray.

“… _What?_ ” That… that didn’t… no.

“Maker Forgive Me…” she wept, deaf to him.

“She began showing signs this spring,” His father was suddenly there next to Connor’s weeping mother, the two of them boxing him in against his chair where he was standing. “And we sought you out across Ferelden. We had no idea if you’d survived the Breach or not, but the Inquisition knew your name and told us you’d been recruited to the Grey Wardens after your formal ascension within the new College.” Connor stared at them, unwilling to accept any of this as real. That he was standing here, that they were telling him this, that his father had an arm around his mother’s trembling shoulders and they were both looking at him as if this entire conversation made sense.

He was better, they trusted him, they needed him specifically.

Oh Maker no, don’t let this be what his numb heart was whispering.

“I…” He tried to speak, tried to walk a careful, crumbling line. “-will request appropriate leave from the Warden Commander, and escort my sister to the College of Enchanters in Cumberland.” They’d finally decided where they would establish themselves: not Kinloch Hold’s bloodied tower, not the White Spire a stone’s throw from the Grand Cathedral, but Cumberland, in Nevarra.

“No, Connor.” His faith broke when his father denied him.

“I cannot live through it _again_ -” His mother sobbed. “I lost you! I cannot lose Rowan the same way!”

“The College is weak and they have no Templars,” his father leapt to explain. “No one to hunt her down: all she needs is a _teacher_. If I can convince the Landsmeet to _consider_ taking you back as my Heir, Connor, then even if you stay this path and reject Redcliffe Arling it will be hardly a stretch for them to accept _Rowan_ despite her magic.”

“She only needs someone to _teach_ _her_ , Connor!” His mother wailed, face patched with red and eyes swelling from her tears, “Someone to make the nightmares _stop_.”

“She needs to go to the College.” Connor repeated, heart erratic. “It’s what they _exist_ for.”

“But you are her _brother!_ ” Isolde sobbed, “You are a mage, trained, _trustworthy!_ Your blood belongs to Redcliffe just like hers does, and she is your sister, she _needs_ you-”

“She needs _you_ to send her to the College!” He shouted it this time. “How dare you try to play this game with me! _Me!_ The child you kept from the Circle until my nightmares drove me to slaughter innocent people! Our own guards and servants, people we knew! Castle Redcliffe running with innocent blood starting at _my own feet!”_

“Connor, if we lose Rowan and you refuse to come back,” his father said to him, the grave weight of kings in his voice, “House Guerrin will crumble.”

“ _Let it burn!”_ He shouted, tears burning his scarred eyes. “Let Castle Redcliffe topple into Lake Calenhad! Let House Guerrin and all its members _burn_ before your selfishness lets history repeat itself!”

“ _Connor!”_

“I will not help you!” He bellowed back and shouted his father _down_. “Play all the politics you like, Lord and Lady Guerrin, but Rowan will go to the College where the magi will be able to train and help her: they’ll make sure she grows up knowing what she is and how to control it!”

“That is treason against your own house!” His father roared.

“Treason, _old man?_ ” Connor bashed the end of his staff on the floor, causing the head to burst to life with a crackle of violet lightning. They both shied back from it- good! “Treason is lying to your king! Treason is harbouring apostates until the demons drive them mad and make rotting puppets of your freemen! When King Alistair learns how deep your embarrassing lies go, when my Lord and Master Archmage Surana of Vigil’s Keep hears of this negligent disrespect towards magic-! House Guerrin will crumble and its line will end with _me!”_

He scared them again with another pulse of magic from his staff, harmless, but frightening enough for them to give him enough space and he could shove past them. He stormed to the door and ignored the repeated shouts of his name, ripping his arm away when he felt his mother try to grab him. He shoved the doors open and stormed out into the hall, shouldering his staff and finding everyone but Nathaniel standing across the hall, startled and staring at the noise.

“We’re done here,” he snapped at them, at Carver specifically, the ass who thought he knew _so much_ about people he’d never met. He didn’t wait for them to say anything before turning and storming away, ready to walk through the entire castle twice as long as it meant not standing still for-

“ _Traitor to his house!_ ” He pulled his hood up with both hands and walked, teeth grinding, words bouncing off the heavy stones of Castle Denerim. “ _Shame that wasted his mother’s blood! No son of mine walks these halls! No son of mine stands in the Maker’s Light!”_

“Eamon stop- _no…!”_

“ _Witness him! Connor, No Man’s Bastard! No son of mine walks these halls! No son of mine stands in the Maker’s Light!”_

Fine.

Fine. Let it end this way.

Hadn’t he said it enough times before, “ _I’m not a member of House Guerrin”_? Hadn’t he worn the name as little more than a memory anyways, a meaningless trinket rendered inert since the day Irving filled the phylactery with his blood?

So fine. Fine. Let it end this way.

_“No son of mine! I have **no son!** ”_

Let it end this way.

* * *

 

Hysteria. Anger. Pride with wounds left bleeding.

“This is not over _._ ”

“How could you? How could you _do this, Eamon?_ We needed him!”

“He wasn’t going to help us on his own, Isolde and I wasn’t going to stand for any more of his disrespect!”

“You could have _bribed him!_ Lied to him! Done anything else but this! I wanted my son back, not _this!_ ”

“As if there’s a way to break Surana’s hold over him!”

Regret. Deceit. Guilty conscience ready to sin.

“Yes. Yes there is.”

“Then do it. I don’t care what it is, you were his mother and the boy is dead to me until Rowan is safe.”

“Eamon _please don’t say things like that…_ ”

“The Circles are broken and the Divine herself says my daughter is mine: I won’t let the College or that Knife-ear have her!”

“Then _you_ stop Surana, and I… I will reach out to Connor.”

“Do whatever it takes, Isolde, just silence him. Maker Watch Over Us, it should never have come to this.”

“Andraste guide us, my love…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Guerrin family here is obviously going through a massive ret-con, mostly because a lot of what is on the Wiki and Origin’s ending cards doesn’t work: we know from Inquisition that whoops, Connor didn’t go to Tevinter to study the Fade. We also know that oops, Rowan couldn’t have gone to the Circle when her magic showed up because six years after she’s born the Circles dissolved! In-game it’s also impossible to have Connor and Rowan exist at the same time, and that Isolde dies giving birth to Rowan. But oh well, it’s my city now!
> 
> Leave a comment below and I’ll see you soon with 20!


	20. What Friendship Feels Like

Connor walked. And he walked. And he walked.

The four Grey Wardens following him said nothing. They had to follow him and they were at his heels as they left Castle Denerim behind and he marched them through the noble district, past House Surana, past House Guerrin, with no signs of stopping. He had to pen a letter to the Warden Commander and tell him what it was House Guerrin kept tying itself in knots trying to keep secret, but he couldn’t do it right now, not when he was this angry.

As soon as he stopped being this angry, he would write the letter Surana needed to see.

As soon as he stopped being so angry that it was hard to breathe.

As soon as he stopped being so angry that he feared his own magic would turn him to ash.

As soon as he stopped being so angry that that all he wanted to do was drop on his knees and scream.

He kept his jaws shut tight, lips peeled back so he could breathe and ignore the whistle of the air through his teeth. It was raining, the spitting grey was enough to cover the noise. The suck and pull of mud under his boots made it a challenge to walk straight or fast, something for him to think about as the rain started to come down and try to twist through the thick wool of his _‘horrible’_ armour.

Warden Corporal Connor of Amaranthine, he could live with that. Apothecary Connor of Vigil’s Keep sounded fine. Warden Connor felt informal but he could learn to listen for it. Corporal of the Grey Connor of the Ferelden Grey Wardens was a mouthful that still got its point across. He didn’t need a last name.

“Warden Guerrin?”

“ _Get the wax out of your ears, Athras!”_ Connor shouted in the rain. He couldn’t feel the taint to bolster his temper and lend venom to his words, and he knew why, but he didn’t want to think about _why_. The taint always answered to his anger, it fed on it like a starved dog on fresh meat. If Connor couldn’t feel the taint then it meant he wasn’t angry, and he didn’t want to know what he was feeling if it wasn’t anger.

So he walked, and he walked, and he walked. He was a Warden: he could walk for miles. He could walk for days. He could walk a deep track around the entire city of Denerim if he put his mind to it. So he walked, and the last of the morning slid into the rainy afternoon, and the noble district became the market district became the docks and so on.

He heard voices behind him and finally picked up Hassick’s voice explaining, _“this road doesn’t go anywhere,”_ to the others.

“ _Then quit following me!_ ” Connor yelled back over his shoulder, earning him no reply from the other four. He ignored the fact that their orders were _explicitly_ to keep an eye on him in Denerim, they were his damned body-guards for this entire miserable experience. There was no getting rid of them, he just had to put up with it.

So Connor walked until he could walk no more in the rain, not because he was tired, but because he just didn’t know how to walk any further. It wasn’t getting him away from that horrible empty void trying to swallow all that he was down into it. Even if he decided to break into a jog, or a sprint, or a steady run for the next hour or more it wouldn’t help him get away. He was cold and he was soaked through, and he didn’t know where to go.

He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t _angry_ … The hot tear tracks down his cheeks had told him so before they’d cleared the last of the castle’s gates. He couldn’t breathe because there was this hopeless, shameful, withering _despair_ squeezing his lungs. It made his ribs ache and ache and ache, a sweet, tingling pain that _wept_ through his bones and drew the breath from him before he could speak or scream.

“Hassick,” Hawke’s voice didn’t intrude in the rain, it was too far away. “You know the city well, don’t you?”

“I’d better, my first odd-job as a boy was helping to rebuild it.” Connor stood there in the rain, up to his ankles in Denerim street mud, and lacked the clarity of mind to even recognize where his eyes had fallen. Nothing made sense to him, he was hurting too much inside to register anything on the outside.

But he felt Carver touch his back, the way his hand and arm rested across Connor’s shoulder as the other Warden stood next to him, hand on his arm, trying to make Connor look at him. He ducked his weeping face and let the rain-soaked hood do its job.

“Find us a chantry, will you?”

Carver led him and Hassick took the group through the dumping rain and down several muddy streets before they came to a wide open market. The weather was poor enough that even the most stubborn merchants had given up for the day, the stalls packed up and emptied to spare the wares from certain destruction in the cold downpour. There was no one to navigate past as they opened the wide double-doors of the quarter’s chantry and clamoured inside out of the rain.

They were soaked. There was only so much any sort of fabric could take before it became absolutely sodden and dripping, and Connor’s tunic felt like it weighed nearly twenty extra pounds between the water and woven silverite. He wasn’t just dripping, there were steady trickles of water from the edges of his armour, his gloves practically suctioned to his hands when he tugged fruitlessly at them. His hair was drenched and his hood keeping its shape only thanks to the silverite bones that ran through the cowl.

There were people here, parishioners and lay sisters and chantry mothers, but there was still plenty of empty space for five Grey Wardens to shelter from the rain without disturbing anyone. Hawke pulled his helmet off and his black hair was plastered against his face and scalp, Hassick was rolling his shoulders again and again, wet gloves at his belt as he rubbed his hands trying to put the feeling back in them, and An’eth was shivering outright, excusing herself to find a place by one of the chantry’s burning iron braziers to warm herself.

“I’m sorry,” Connor whispered, realizing the sorry state he’d put them all in. He couldn’t feel Evie’s hand properly through his own cold, clammy glove, but she pushed his hood down and the cheek she leaned in to press against his was cold. She didn’t hug him in her armour, but her lips touched his cheek before she pulled away from him with a tender, sympathetic look on her face. She slipped away and gave Carver a look that held for a long time between them, and then took Hassick with her to dry off with An’eth. This left him alone with Carver, and…

“Are you satisfied?” Connor asked him, voice weak and body cold and vacant. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a hundred years. The look of regret that passed over Carver’s face didn’t help him feel any better.

“No. What I am is sorry.”

“I’m sure you are,” is not what he should have said, but that was what came out and he closed his eyes, shaking his head in quiet disbelief. He didn’t want another fight today. He didn’t want to get into a shouting match with Carver Hawke in the middle of a city chantry.

“No, I _am_.” But Carver didn’t raise his voice or bring up his fists or try to argue with him, he just shook his head and stepped closer with a kind of honesty in his voice that made Connor feel even more exhausted. “The King came out of that room like thunder and took Nathaniel away with hardly a word of explanation, and then the shouting that started when you were alone with them- I’m sorry. Connor, _I am sorry_.”

“I…” He was freezing cold and suddenly thirsty for water. Everything felt wrong and blurry, everything he was just _ached_. “I don’t know why I’m this upset- I shouldn’t be. I’ve been saying- for _months_ \- for years, ever since I went to the Circle I’ve been saying _‘I’m not one of them’_ and now- I…” Now he wasn’t. He wasn’t one of them, he wasn’t kin to them, he wasn’t _anything_ now…

It hurt to be hugged by someone wearing armour. It was literally being held against plates and folds of hard metal, cold and unforgiving, but sometimes sentiment mattered more and Connor tried to return the favour without hurting his arms against the ridges of Carver’s breastplate and shoulder cuffs. He wasn’t crushed or squeezed, but he was held, and against his ear he heard, _“I’m so sorry, Connor_.” repeated and it made the tears come loose again.

Carver took him to one of the pews and sat him down. Connor fought with his gloves until he finally pulled his white, shivering hands free, dropping his face against his palms and holding his head, eyes spilling warm tears as he took slow, deep breaths. The calm, incense-heavy air only helped him become more agitated, a process that hurt but felt natural: he wasn’t running, it was catching up with him, and it was _hurting so much…_

“ _I shouldn’t be this upset…_ ” He gasped, feeling himself shake and the tears fall heavier.

“Yes you should…” Carver kept a hand on his back, rubbing hard over the pleated fabric and silverite studs. “You don’t have to pray, just take a bit of sanctuary.”

“ _I want to go home…_ ” The words came out thick and cloying, and when he coughed phlegm from the rain out of his lungs it made him wrap his arms around his gut and double over, eyes overwhelmed with tears.

Disowned. He’d been disowned. It shouldn’t have upset him like this but it _did_ and he couldn’t rationalize _why_. He’d been disinherited _years_ ago by the Chantry and it had never affected him like this- he’d been upset but also guilty of terrible crimes, surrendering his rights as Heir to Redcliffe had been a natural course. But that disgrace and this one were somehow completely different. Hadn’t he been just as angry as his parents? Hadn’t he stood and shouted to their _faces_ that he was going to take their secret to the Warden Commander? He’d cursed House Guerrin- what had he _thought_ they’d do to him? Bop him on the head and send him to his room without supper?

But it hurt, and it hurt, and it wasn’t going to just go away. Carver sat with him throughout, the both of them armoured and cold.

When the Revered Mother came out and led a long, slow praise of the Maker through Andraste’s chant, Connor was in control of himself enough to lend his voice for parts of it. He hadn’t practiced his faith much since joining the Grey Wardens, and even at Skyhold before then it had been less about his spirit and more just one of the few ways to break up the monotony of doing nothing, the frantic hope that by helping the Inquisition he’d been helping himself.

Even if it wouldn’t be enough to turn the Maker’s gaze back to them in Connor’s lifetime, the Chant of Light was still a beautiful piece of music and the canticle they sang through was lovely and peaceful. He felt better for contributing to it, and by the end of the service he felt like he could finally sit still for a moment and not go to weeping pieces again.

“…I’m sorry for how I spoke to you at Vigil’s Keep.” Connor finally said once the service ended and the faithful were dismissed to their daily deeds. “And for how I’ve acted since coming to Denerim.” Next to him Carver blew out a long breath, shifting on his wet spot on the pew before answering.

“Well _I’m_ sorry that your parents are such awful people,” he said. “But the King isn’t known for storming away from anyone, and I don’t think it was you he was mad at. So I’m sorry too.” Connor’s heart felt real release with the words. Carver’s arms were folded, his back resting against the pew they were sitting on, and he seemed calm in the chantry’s quiet.

“If it means anything, I wish you’d been the one who was right.” Connor admitted.

“So do I, but that’s not where we are now, is it?” Carver asked the ceiling, then let his gaze roll back down to Connor. “So are we good again, you and I? Are we finished being petty little children?” Connor nodded to him, slow and heavy. Yes, they were done with being that way.

“Good.” Carver smacked his own knee. “Now let’s go and get you drunk.” Connor felt his tired face crease into a smile.

“Aren’t we supposed to do that first and _then_ end up in a chantry?” He asked, but yes: getting drunk sounded wonderfully good to him right now.

“Only if you plan on doing something stupid like dance around naked.” Carver cracked a smile at him and they both stood up. Connor gathered his staff and gloves before following the other warden away to find their friends.

Hassick and An’eth were standing patiently with Evie by the chantry’s shut doors, still muddy and damp looking but not nearly as bad as earlier. They got Evie’s attention so she could turn and face them as Connor and Carver approached, then she came and headed them off.

“Did you two finally make peace?” She demanded of them before they could leave. They both nodded and she kissed her own hands, lifting them up. “Maker be praised! I was starting to lose hope for you both.”

Evie walked right to them, took Carver by the collar and kissed him full and fast on the mouth. As soon as she let him go he was spluttering that this was ‘ _not the place’_ and right now ‘ _not the time’_ , but Connor stopped listening when Evie’s soft, sweet lips closed over his too. He shut his eyes and extinguished the small, anxious worry that her feelings about him had changed since last night. It was alright if she cared for Carver as long as there was still some of her warmth left for him too.

Connor shut his eyes, touched her face, and tried to convince the kiss to linger. When it failed because Evie only intended for it to be short, he took heart in the fact that her first spoken words were _“That_ is what a woman wants in a kiss, Hawke, you should ask him for advice.” Carver’s offense left him so visibly shocked that Evie took Connor’s hand to lead him away, and Connor caught Carver’s to keep him from being left behind in the chantry. Hassick wasn’t speaking to either of the senior wardens as he pulled up his hood and led the group outside, he was speaking to _Connor?_

“I wasn’t certain before, Corporal, but I’m going to assume no whores with the wine tonight?”

“Hassick!” An’eth barked at him, but the marksman just turned around with an animated shrug under the lingering drizzle outside. Maker, it was cold out, the fresh wind and air reminding Connor that he was _soaking wet_ still.

“What? It’s an honest question in Denerim!” Hassick argued, and it was in fact quite true: most of the houses in the Market and Dock districts were… of a certain sort. “The two best places to get a drink are the Pearl, which is closer, and the Gnawed Noble, which has significantly less… _variety_.”

“I have one sovereign from Vigil’s Keep,” Connor said, his voice cracking from the hard day’s emotions. He ignored the insanity of Hassick assuming Connor wanted to pay for a very uncomfortable woman to give him very unwanted attention, and went for what was important: “I was just disowned by one of the richest, most powerful noble houses in Ferelden. A sovereign’s worth of whatever the Gnawed Noble serves would probably be enough to straight up kill any one of us, but between five Grey Wardens, I like our chances.” The expensive flagons of Amaranthine wine two months ago had run them a combined total of nearly twenty silvers, Connor was now offering five times that amount.

“I’m in.” Hassick declared, because he was a good and loyal Warden.

“Ser, that is a _lot_ of money.” An’eth cautioned, because she was a good and not-stupid Warden.

“Thank you, Warden Athras, but I’ve had a very _bad_ day…” Connor emphasized as gently as he could. “You don’t have to come if you-”

“Oh- pardon me,” she interrupted with a palm showing. “I am absolutely coming, Ser. I just wanted to be the voice of reason first.” Connor’s smile came easily to him this time, and he hoped the affection behind it was clearly stated.

Hassick led them dutifully through the city. When they came within sight of a red-painted wooden sign depicting an unhappy man in fine clothes being chewed on by an angry mabari, Hassick threw a hand over his shoulder and announced that he’d grown up in this quarter.

“Mum was a laundry woman before the Blight.” He explained, the five of them cold, hungry, and trudging through the ankle-deep mud. Hassick was probably talking to keep from complaining about their miserable state. “When we came back to scavenge after the Battle of Denerim there was a knight in Grey Warden armour who gave her a sack of gold coins and walked off without giving his name or any explanation. Always fancied it to be the Hero of Ferelden, but the man I remember was a giant: Surana barely makes it to my shoulder.”

“Are you suggesting that _the king_ gave your mum the money to buy a new life?” Carver asked as they trudged into the tavern. It was warm inside, loud and crowded with the bodies of merchants and tradesmen slighted by the day’s foul weather. Hassick looked taken aback by Carver’s comment and stared at him.

“He _did_ know my name,” Hassick muttered, clearly stricken by this information.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single person call you _Meelo_ before.” An’eth threw in her two cents.  “Maybe Captain Renth did- once?” Hassick went pale.

“I don’t want to think about it.” He stated. “I don’t want to know.”

“Should I set our tab?” Connor asked, and the other warden nodded with a wild look to him.

Real gold made the difference from _‘you there, Warden’_ to _‘anything you fancy, m’lord?’_ with the proprietor of the Gnawed Noble. That single fat, heavy gold coin got them a table in the back, semi-private section of the public house, a server just for the five of them, and then enough of whatever they wanted to satisfy everyone. None of them had eaten since breakfast that morning at the manor, they were freezing cold and the general tone seemed to be that if Connor was treating then they would eat and drink until the money ran out. If Nathaniel should stumble upon them: there was a sixth chair waiting.

Connor would be in Denerim for a few more days as-per His Majesty’s order, but he openly shared his intention to remain at House Surana with the others at the table. He would write and send his letter to Vigil’s Keep and then that would be it until King Alistair called for him again. Connor would just lay in bed and be miserable and sad, so before going down for that emotional coma he wanted to do at least one good thing and see the rest of them well fed and looked after for the night.

Evie, Carver and An’eth were simply not going to sit and drink in heavy plates of silverite. They doffed the thick, cumbersome slats of their silverite faulds- what Connor usually thought of as the skirt part of their armour. Evie accepted his help in pulling off the high guards of her shoulder-plates, Hawke glad to be rid of his silverite gorget. Connor let his staff join An’eth’s spear, Hassick’s crossbow, and Carver’s long sword against the wall behind their table, just to have less clutter under their feet. This was Ferelden and they didn’t have to remove any of their arms, it just made for a more agreeable evening.

“I know it’s none of my business, Captain.” An’eth’s voice said as Hassick shouted his approval for the stuffed chickens and roasted vegetables landing on the table after their first round of drinks had come and gone. “But… you and Warden Guerrin?”

“He makes me happy.” Evie’s answer caught his ear before Connor could ask An’eth to please not use that name when referring to him anymore. He took a long, deep draw from the bitter ale in his hand instead, sitting wedged between Evie and Carver at the middle of the table. “And there’s an aura of safety around him that I find most compelling.” He felt calmer now than he had all day, and although he should have been trying to get a portion of that herb-crusted chicken for himself, he let his hand fold over her wrist to get Evie’s attention.

“I’m not the one carrying the shield, Captain.” He told her quietly, and when she brushed her fingers over the back of his hand they were a comfort to him.

“Oh- no, I didn’t mean to question _that_ ,” An’eth awkwardly tried to explain, hiding behind her own thick tankard for a moment. “I just… Captain I thought that you and Warden _Hawke_ were…” Her voice was very soft, probably Connor’s fault for including himself in their conversation. Connor felt a weak rumble of apprehension run through him, but Evie’s hand on his helped him through it. She looked at him for a moment, then past him where Carver and Hassick were actively trying to out-eat each other down the table.

“He _also_ makes me happy.” She said, and with some relief Connor squeezed her fingers before setting his drink down and reaching for the slowly dwindling quantity of food. The heavily salted chicken skin went down easily with the last of the ale as he finished it off, patient with the conversation going on around him. “I like being around people who make me laugh, Warden, is that so hard to understand?”

“But are they _both_ alright with that?” An’eth asked, and Connor’s stomach was now more interested in claiming the last of the tavern’s cheese-baked potatoes from its empty platter.

“That’s mine.” Carver told him rudely, but it didn’t stop Connor from getting his hand on it.

“I paid for it.” He rebuked, taking a satisfying bite of melted butter and sharp cheese.

“Go back to drinking! You’ve only had two, which puts you behind both of us.”

“Ale’s gone.” Connor answered around a mouthful of cheese. The girl would be back soon; they hadn’t come close to eating or drinking through their tab yet.

“You fucking hate ale, why are you drinking it?” Carver demanded, and Connor just shrugged and tried to actually get through the richness in his mouth. “Lass! Ah- you were bringing more of those, thank you. But a pitcher of cider for the mage here! No, not the table, just him.”

“Why not the table?” Connor asked, and it just made Carver flail his hands about uselessly for a few seconds.

“ _Fine_ , it’s his money anyways. One for the table and one for the miserable mage!”

Next to him, Connor heard Evie’s gentle laugh and caught her saying: _“I don’t think it bothers them, Warden Athras_.”

Getting drunk was expensive business as a Grey Warden, even more so the longer they kept food on the table to eat and enjoy with their drinks. Alcohol had been Carver’s suggestion and one met with Connor’s high approval, but honestly he was just relieved to have the other four talking to each other, sharing jokes and food and not being bogged down by any of Connor’s drama. He had Evie’s warm attention next to him, even when she was talking to Hassick and teasing him again about the King personally knowing his name she still had her hand on Connor’s arm, or would pause to give Connor a direct smile. Carver took it as a personal offense if Connor’s cup ran empty and kept intentionally trying to rile Connor up by repeatedly taking food from him and even once, mystifyingly, taking away the cup he’d just refilled for him.

“Are you _serious?_ ” Connor finally asked him. “We have a hundred-silver strong tab and you keep-?”

“Honestly, I’m just trying to piss you off.” Carver admitted. Connor heard himself start laughing and rubbed both hands over his face.

“You’re such an _ass._ ”

“Hah! I got him to laugh! That’s a silver you owe me, Hassick!”

“ _Fuck you both_ ,” Connor laughed harder still. He drunk happily from Evie’s wine when Hawke wouldn’t give his cider back, got into a very confusing but somehow lucid discussion with An’eth about whether Halla or Mabari were smarter, and laughed outright at Hassick’s following fantastic drunken suggestion:

“Okay but, _what if_ …” The Warden was obviously drowning in drink, his red Ferelden cheeks blushing brilliantly. “You’re at the Vigil, middle of the night, and a knock at your door reveals a _beautiful_ woman. I mean- the most gorgeous, incredible looking woman you’ve ever seen- whatever that looks like to you, and- and it’s _just sex_. And no one would _ever_ know, would you take it?”

“Hassick- I’m a _mage_.” Connor was in _tears_ laughing.

“But would you _do it?_ ”

“There’s an entire _category_ of demon that’s exactly what you just described!”

“But _would you-?”_

“No! Hassick it’s a demon! Do not fuck the demon!” Carver almost spat beer next to him before bursting out laughing.

“I’m changing my answer,” Carver gasped as he slowly straightened back up in his seat.

“Hawke! _C’mon!_ ”

“No, I’m changing it, Hassick.” Connor clapped a hand on his shoulder, proud of him for making the right choice. “Because the moment I think _‘maybe, why not?’_ , I’d hear his voice going ‘ _do not fuck the demon!’_ and that would be it for me.” Laughter circled the table and Connor gave a little jump when Evie took his hand again, but this time with a squeeze that bordered on uncomfortable and snapped his attention around.

“Ah- Evie?” He croaked, worried to see her smile gone and eyes focused on the table in front of her, her tight grip relaxed and her free hand was signing.

_‘We need to leave.’_

“What? _Why?”_ Hawke yelled, catching the motion of her hands and answering loudly. Connor felt his good, cheerful, laughing mood begin to constrict.

_‘I didn’t see him come in. I don’t know how long he’s been here.’_

_‘Who?’_ Connor asked.

“Ooh… you go so fast…” An’eth complained, cheeks flushed and wide el’vhen eyes staring at Evie’s hands, squinting hard trying to decipher the signs properly. “No, no, I think I got it?” And then she repeated Evie’s signs and Connor nodded, but this wasn’t a language lesson.

‘ _P-e-r-t-h._ ’ Everything Connor had consumed tonight no longer wanted to stay in his stomach. Hassick asked who that was and as Connor leaned back hard in his chair, he used both hands to explain _‘Knight of Redcliffe’,_ spelling the Arling’s name when Hassick didn’t know the sign for it.

“Well fuck, there goes my buzz.” The junior warden swore, arms folded on the table as he leaned low with the grumble.

“Where is he?” Connor murmured, watching Evie take a slow drink from her wine next to him, leaving the cup up to muffle her words.

“At the bar, talking to our server. I should have seen him sooner.” Connor immediately put his hand up to her drink, touched the top of it and let his fingers guide it down back to the table. “We owe nothing for the meal, Connor. Let’s just leave.”

“I could try talking to him?” Connor’s drunk tongue thought this was an idea worth voicing. “Get him to leave?”

“I could punch you in the _face_ and have that be only a little less stupid,” Carver mocked next to him. “Last time we saw him he had four knights in plain clothes with him, where are they now?” It wasn’t just the five of them back here. This half of the tavern was only _semi_ private, walled off from the main body of the tavern’s common room but with other long tables just like theirs hosting other groups of Denerim’s educated and working professionals. It wasn’t a busy night, and theirs’ was the loudest table by far, but there were people around.

“They might be watching exits.” An’eth suggested and Connor’s insides felt very cold, his magic fleeting and low inside of him, the warmth smothered by growing anxiety. “But they already hurt you today, Warden, why would they show up again?”

“Because I know things I shouldn’t,” Connor admitted, and it finally struck him how stupid he’d been not to have them all go straight from the castle to House Surana to stay safe.

“Hassick, you good with your fists?” Carver grunted.

“Fuckin’ better be if they’re going to interrupt our mage’s gold-crown dinner.”

“ _Good man._ ”

“Brace-” Evie warned and Connor looked up right as Ser Perth, Knight of Redcliffe and loyal servant to House Guerrin walked up to their sombre table. He stood there in a long red cloak lined inside with white fur, a fine sword sheathed at his belt and shield’s edge showing under the cloak against his back.

“Warden Connor,” the older man said, ignoring Hawke and Hassick who were both sitting at that end of the table. “If I may intrude-”

“You already have,” Connor said in a loud voice, looking at him and wishing Perth a hundred miles away from this tavern. “It shocks me that House Guerrin uses a seasoned, veteran commander of men as a messenger boy.” Perth took a slow breath and showed the palms of both hands to the table, shaking his head.

“I come in peace, Warden.” Oh that sounded _very_ sincere and Connor almost said as much, pulling in a slow, stable breath trying to keep his temper from flaring up. If the taint so much as grumbled at him the alcohol in his blood would burn away completely.

“What do you want, Ser Perth?”

“To come forward as someone who has served House Guerrin for my entire life and say that what happened to you today was _wrong_.” Connor was… surprised… to hear that. “I remember you as a boy at Redcliffe, and I know life, or fate, or the Maker himself have been unkind to you, but it still shouldn’t have happened this way. I came here tonight to say I’m sorry, Connor. I truly am.”

Connor sat there and was thankful he’d kept his harsher thoughts to himself, they would have been petty in the face of an apology. Through the numbing effects of the drink the five of them had shared he tried to remember how to speak tactfully, or at least kindly.

“Thank you, Ser Perth,” he answered with a nod, voice faint. “I am… humbled by your words.”

“I recognize as well how rudely I behaved in Amaranthine, it was unbecoming of a Knight of Redcliffe.” Perth inclined his head briefly to Carver and then again to Evie, perhaps because he recognized them from that public house in the city. “Perhaps I could cover the cost of your table this evening?”

“Oh-” Connor didn’t know how he felt about that. “Um, that is… most generous of you, Ser Perth, but- it would be inappropriate for me to ask so much coin from you.” Even if they hadn’t hit the end of their tab yet, they’d obviously gone through a significant portion of it. “We’ve been very indulgent tonight.” At Connor’s insistence no less, an embarrassing thing to consider. Perth gave a quiet, awkward laugh at Connor’s explanation.

“I cannot say I blame you… Perchance, have you and your companions enjoyed much of the mead?” Connor looked up and down the table briefly, actually unsure if they had or not. “The Gnawed Noble carries a particularly fine Antivan mead, and in winter they mull it with an aromatic blend of spices. Let it be a sweeter note on which for us to part?” Connor floundered again, not sure how to refuse or if he even wanted to at this point. Perth seemed uncomfortable, deflated even: he was just trying to make amends in some small way for a bigger problem he had no real part in.

“We were nearly finished for the night anyways,” Evie suggested quietly from beside him. “Heated wine before retiring seems a harmless idea.”

“I’ll drink something hot before getting out in that rain again,” Hawke agreed, shrugging his shoulders.

“I enjoy sweet drinks,” An’eth sounded awkward but gave her quiet approval as well.

“I still don’t see why you can’t just go with his first offer.” Hassick muttered. “If his coin’s good I’ll drink anything.”

“Thank you, Ser Perth,” Connor felt he had the authority to say. “We accept your offer.” The old knight gave a tired smile and nodded.

“I’ll make the order. I apologize for disturbing your evening, Wardens.”

The table gave a collective sigh of relief as Perth left for the bar. Hassick kept his hazy eyes on the knight, giving a running commentary as Connor swallowed the last of his current cider. Carver clapped him on the shoulder and rubbed down Connor’s back, muttering to him that things could have gone a lot worse.

“We’ll drink the mead, stumble back to House Surana, and throw you in bed.” Carver explained, and Connor nodded with thanks before eating through one of the savoury bread rolls still scattered on their table.

“ _You dogs!_ ” A new, loud voice shouted, startling the five of them. Connor looked straight up past the empty chair across from him and joined the awkward stumble around the table as they all stood. “I leave you fools alone for one _sodding hour_ , come back and have the whole day go belly-up!”

“Warden Howe!”

“Nathaniel-?”

“Lieutenant!”

Connor almost managed to forget Perth completely as Nathaniel stomped across the tavern’s back end to find them. He was wet and his boots were only a bit less muddy than the rest of theirs. He was gnashing his teeth at them and threw his hands in the air as he shouted again that _one hour_ , he’d left them alone at castle Denerim for _one sodding hour_.

“I came back, heard the chaos you’d gotten into with your family, and the King dragged me right back to his salon to shout and kick for the rest of the afternoon!” He raved, putting a hand on Hassick and then Carver to make them sit back down, coming around at Connor. “Andraste’s Flaming Sword, you assholes know how to make trouble!”

Nathaniel clasped Connor’s hand and dragged him very close to clap him hard on the back. The senior warden was soaking wet and freezing cold from the rain, but hardly showed it as he dropped his voice by Connor’s ear.

“ _I’m sorry for the shit-show.”_ He grumbled, and Connor knew he meant it sincerely. _“Alistair will see you again tomorrow and help send you back to the Vigil. King’s Word and honour of a Grey Warden, you’ll not have to deal with them again.”_

“Thank you, sir.” He could go home, he could go _home_. Nathaniel released him and looked down at the messy table.

“Now which one of you idiots is going to pay for all this!” He shouted.

Four hands came up and immediately pointed at Connor. Nathaniel did not expect this because the grizzly Warden looked at him straight and hard.

“I had a bad day,” Connor whimpered shamefully. “I just wanted to do something nice for my friends.”

“ _Without me_ , I see how it is.” His mentor growled, eyes narrow, and Connor’s heart hammered with sudden fear.

“No! Your chair is right there, sir, right there.” He gestured and tried to nudge the senior warden around to see.

“I’m just shitting with you, Gue- _agh_ , Connor. This is going to take some adjusting.” Nathaniel blew out a breath and made his way back around to the other side of the table, dropping his bow next to his chair and easing himself down on the sturdy wood. An’eth provided a clean cup and Hassick a not-quite-empty platter of flayed and heavily seasoned fish, and Connor shyly explained that more wine was coming when Nathaniel picked up an empty flagon and squinted into it.

Nathaniel settled down to his dinner and Hassick finally stopped pouting with his announcement that Ser Perth had left through the front of the house. Nathaniel sat up at this announcement and demanded to be filled in, only to have their server interrupt him with a heavy clay decanter and a platter with six wooden chalices on it. Carver gave a hum of approval and helped clear a space on the table for the cups to be placed down, and when the decanter was opened the heavy aroma of warm, honey wine and thick spices flowed as freely as the golden liquid itself. She filled all six and replaced the ceramic top on the vessel, the jar’s wide round belly settling like a royal queen at the end of the table. She’d been tipped well by their table and Connor hadn’t heard anyone speak rudely, so her smile felt genuine as she served the softly steaming drink to the awe and approval of the table.

“To the Vigil!” Nathaniel trumpeted, chalice held up.

“To the Commander!” Carver echoed.

“To good wine!” Evie laughed.

“To good friends!” Connor finished, and the table drank.

Connor was surprised by the cloying sweetness of the drink, but the heat of the stewed cloves and rich cardamom was rich and heavy, filling his mouth and nose with spice before he swallowed. He felt himself hum in approval that echoed the satisfied noises around the table: swallowing it brought a smooth, steady flow of heat down through his chest to sit in his stomach, spreading out gently like a warm hug. He took a deep breath of the herbs and caught the lighter aroma of cinnamon dancing over the top of the fragrant mixture, drinking again to take in more of that thick warmth.

“That is _divine_ ,” Evie crooned next to him, and Carver’s nose was stuck in his chalice as he drank it much faster than was probably wise.

“Too sweet for me, but that’s _nice_ going down.” Hassick approved. Nathaniel was giving his cup a curious look and An’eth was tapping her hand repeatedly on the table, trying to figure out something.

“I know that taste,” She muttered, drinking easily from her cup. “I know it.” She took another mouthful and Connor copied her, the hard tension in his shoulders easing off as the drink wrapped a warm, sun-soaked blanket around him. “Corporal, what do you taste?”

“Honey and sunlight.” Connor hummed, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair before realizing a third swallow had emptied his cup. Oh no, he needed more of that before they left. Carver played server and tipped the decanter’s mouth over Connor’s cup, refilling for himself and Nathaniel before passing the clay vessel down the table for it to sit close enough for Evie and An’eth to reach.

“Mm- _mon cher_ if you can tell me what’s in this, my heart will be forever yours,” Evie purred, and Connor grinned a drunk, stupid grin against his cup.

“Cardamom for sweetness,” He said, “Extra honey to thicken, cloves for the heat, cinnamon for the smokiness.” He sipped again, regretting his faster mouthfuls when this was _obviously_ something meant to be sipped by a fire with a mabari sleeping at your feet. But this was wonderful, it was _so warm_. He could feel it soaking into his blood and letting his easy heart push and push it through his body.

“But what- what’s under it?” An’eth asked, blinking hard over a quiet slur. “Under the cardamom?”

“Hmm?” Connor sipped again, letting air mix in his mouth, trying to breathe around the cloying sweet taste. The warmth made his lips tingle, and when he exhaled after the few golden drops passed his tongue he tasted… “Huh…” he sipped again, that was… bitter?

“This is _strong_ ,” Nathaniel finally said, the novelty of the drink clearly spent on him already. “Since when do I feel something after only a cup?” He put his chalice down and reached for the decanter, grabbing it before Connor could.

“Give it a shake, sir, if I can see the herbs in my cup I’ll figure it out eventually.”

“I’m gonna pretend you just spoke sense and not a bunch of slurred nonsense- _Hassick?_ ” The junior warden had his head down and Connor tried to sit up around the thick, heavy, soothing warmth wrapped over his legs and numbing his… numbing?

“It’s so hot in here…” An’eth complained, leaning her head back against her chair, eyes closed.

Connor took up his chalice and filled his mouth, then spat the mead back into the cup. He kept his mouth open, breathing in, trying to taste that bitter, tingling, warming, numbing-

“ _Embrium_ -?” He mumbled, placing his hand on Evie’s slumped shoulders where she had her elbows down hard on the table, trying to stand up and failing. Carver pushed his chair back but his legs gave out and dropped him to the floor with a slurred, shaken swear.

Nathaniel stood up and he stumbled hard, both hands down on the table. Connor looked past him and their end of the tavern was nearly empty, tables abandoned and their server gone, voices asking questions. His mind filled with the grey haze of embrium and the sigil of restoration, of protection, of warding, of repulsion- they all became muddled and wrong, his focus drowned in the heat that made it impossible to lift his arms.

Someone grabbed him quick and fast under the shoulders, help he needed in order to stand, but then he heard Nathaniel cry out and saw him fall past the edge of the table. A man was there who kicked where the Warden fell, swinging his leg again and again, before giving a final stomp and everything was moving. The table was moving, his friends were moving, Connor was moving…

The cold dark and rain of a Denerim winter night became the flaked, ashen grey of the Fade. He was asleep. He couldn’t wake up. And Connor, body bound by embrium, started screaming.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to act 2.


	21. The Dame of Sahrnia

Connor was in the Fade and he couldn’t wake up. He tried and he failed and no matter what he did- it wasn’t working.

He couldn’t will it, couldn’t force it, couldn’t shock or scare or bully himself free.

He couldn’t even conjure himself here and try to calm down, because something truly horrifying was happening to Connor _outside_ the Fade: he was moving. It had happened once or twice on those long journeys by ship, falling into an unguarded sleep on a moving vessel had changed how the Fade presented itself, and that same eerie, horrible sensation had gripped him now. He was moving. He was _falling_.

“ _Wake me up!_ ” He screamed without a voice, _“Stop this! Put me down and let me wake up! Please! Please stop this!_ ”

The Fade was rarely the same place twice, but it could be similar. Like any proper mage Connor avoided the realm of dreams whenever he could, but he still knew its rules: if you slept in the same physical place each night, eventually the Fade would morph to accommodate that fact and try to reflect the real world back at you as you slept. That was how one demon had created a mock-up of Connor’s workshop, it was how the Fear Demon had built Vigil’s Keep to try and catch the Vigil’s mages: if they could convince you the events around you were real, then they could trick and take control of your mind.

But right now nothing was familiar. Nothing could pretend to be solid. No demon or spirit could catch up with him as the Fade howled and scattered like sand in a high wind- but no matter how far Connor fell he would never find the desert below. He was _falling_ , trapped in a thrashing grey nothing that made what little he could sense of himself tumble and spin wild and frightened through the unformed air. His mind trailed behind his sleeping body like an anchor whose chain was too short to catch and stop the boat. He had nothing to tether himself to, no craggy dream-cliff or cave, no broken walls, no midnight grass. No demon could focus on him, no dreamer would cross his path.

He was falling.

He was moving.

And there was no waking up.

* * *

 

Warden Captain Genevieve Bouclier, Dame of Sahrnia, Orlesian Counsel to Vigil’s Keep, opened her eyes and with one breath she _roared_.

A door opened and brought light to the darkness clutching her. Her skin was brittle and cold, arms and legs numb with a freezing pain that resisted her when she sat up. But she made her body move, forced her gut to clench with the last of her scream. When she drew her next breath the darkspawn taint sleeping in her blood ignited across her icy chest.

A hand tried to push her back down and the captain rolled her elbow up and back to knock the offensive touch away. The last thing she remembered was Nathaniel Howe crumbling hard to the floor and some thug throwing Genevieve and her chair to the ground as they rushed past her.

A voice over her was speaking but the taint was louder, reaching her ears and burning, _burning_ \- ripping through the cold shadows marring her vision, shoving through the cluttered dredges of the last night’s drinking. She tore back the blankets and the cold air made her legs tremble, the taint’s needles and shards of glass pushing through her veins outward from her chest, nicking and scratching her shoulders, bleeding slowly over her hips. Her heart kept screaming in outrage as her lungs drew in cold air and her blood did battle with the lingering poison.

“Warden-” She stood, the little woman in leather armour tried to stop her, and Genevieve took the challenge by both wrists, twisted her arms out painfully, and stood without releasing the guardswoman. She hoped the blue light of the taint burning through her eyes was _terrifying._

 _“_ Where are my _men?_ ” She stated hard and firm in King’s Trade, everything about her throat and mouth felt stale and harsh, but she spoke and didn’t care what her voice sounded like.

“Here- they’re here, Grey Warden, I swear to you- _ah!_ ” She twisted the wrists in her grasp again, the taint _demanding_ violence.

“Where are my weapons and arms?”

“By the bed, M’lady if you’d only-”

“Where is _here?”_ She hissed.

“The guard’s barracks of Castle Denerim!” The guardswoman shouted and Genevieve finally released her. The taint was winning out against the cold grasping foul and unwanted through her flesh. Her balance felt stable, eyes clear, and there was reason to be had in the face of compliance and answers from the woman slowly retreating from her. “Guard Captain Kylon had you all brought here last night after the upset in the Gnawed Noble tavern by the market district- Wardens don’t just drop like flies, he said.”

“We don’t,” She stated. “Not without help. I will speak with him.”

The guardswoman fled and Genevieve refused to let go of her indignation- anger fed the taint and the taint was the only thing purging the lesser filth from her body.

She’d been stripped to her black shirt and trousers, but when she took a moment to actually search around the stiff cot she’d woken up in, she found what was missing.

Maker, she still felt cold, teeth chattering as she pulled on the heavy, still-damp blue of her silverite-woven tunic. With stiff fingers she bound the laces that walked across her collarbone and up her throat. Her vambraces she laced more slowly still, but the belts of her chevron breastplate obeyed her stubborn hands and her pauldrons and tassets found their heavy, weighted places across her body. Whoever had removed her boots had left the silverite greaves attached, and her gauntlets and helmet were resting next to her sword and the round silverite shield she owned to replace her much-abused kite shield from Orlais. This one was etched with the Warden griffon over Sahrnia’s mountain and the open blossom of an Orlesian rose. It was a gift from Carver.

When she left the room there was a short hallway that led to a general barracks common room: long tables, weapons and arms in racks along the walls, stacked decks of cards and assorted men and women in standard leather armour. The few guards present had the decency to look uneasy when she stepped out in her restored armour, and their Captain distinguished himself by his judging scowl and immediate move to meet her. Perhaps she had been in Ferelden too long already, because she appreciated his boldness.

“Now see here, Warden,” the man said to her. He was mature and wore his armour well, straight nose and thick, dark auburn hair brushed over his head. “Just because something foul may be afoot doesn’t give you the right to manhandle my recruits.”

“Are you Captain of these barracks?” She asked, avoiding the main topic only for a moment.

“I am.” He answered. “I am Guard-Captain Kylon of Castle Denerim. And you?”

“Warden Captain Bouclier of Vigil’s Keep.” She said. “My first response upon waking was to assume danger. Your recruit has my apologies and your men my thanks for caring for my belongings. Where are my companions, and how did we come to be here?” The Captain extended an arm back the way Genevieve had come.

“The men and the elven woman are down the same hall you just came from.” Good, this man seemed competent at his job. “The sergeant and his men who patrol the market district came at the sound of brawling at the Gnawed Noble. Armed men were inside and had chased patrons out of the back room where you and your companions were passed out blind, one of yours with a knife in his back and enough blood on his face to show it was a one-sided affair.” Her heart burned, the taint _squeezing_ the hot blood through her veins. Nathaniel had been with them and he’d fallen with a scream. No, he could not have died like that.

“Is he down this way?” She indicated the hall, but the other Captain shook his head.

“No. The medic on patrol had him brought to the castle and immediately handed over to His Majesty’s surgeons.” That was good. She didn’t know the justification, but it was still good. “Not standard procedure for a drunken brawl, but I’ve never known a Grey Warden to pass out drunk- and I’ve seen His Majesty enjoy himself at Tourneys. Last I heard he was going to make it, but that was hours ago.”

“Once I have roused my companions I would like to see him.” And then she caught herself with a breath, because- “Describe his face to me, I want to make sure it is who I’m thinking of.”

“Long black hair, full Warden armour,” the Captain relayed, but it was with a tone of voice that resisted further questions. “I think he wore a blue sash of some sort.” Warden Howe. Genevieve swallowed hard and nodded.

“Thank you, Captain.” She turned to walk down the way he’d shown and the officer fell in step with her. He had more to say but it was good, valuable input.

“The medic said it was a plant called embrium mixed with the herbs from your wine that knocked you lot out.” Kylon informed her. But the plant was familiar to her and the rank caught her ear. He could have meant his own medical officer, or it was Connor- he’d named the drug himself before Genevieve had lost her focus. The Captain showed her which door and she opened it. “The brew-master confessed outright to taking a sizeable purse of coin in exchange for adding the petals while the wine heated. Morals may fail against silver but it’s good to know most people can’t let a guilty conscience fester when it comes to wronging Wardens… Captain?”

“Where is he?” The air and words slipped from her lungs. Genevieve stood there in the doorway and she saw Carver and Hassick asleep on two rough cots just like the one she’d woken up on. But it was just the two of them. Hassick’s crossbow and Hawke’s longsword were laid out on the third, empty cot in the middle of the room along with their carefully removed armour. Kylon said something useless and she corrected him immediately: “No, one is missing.”

“The one upstairs, you mean?”

“That is Warden Howe.” She explained, shaking her head and feeling herself losing hold of the taint in her blood. Fear was beating back her anger, causing the fierce burn to fade away. “We are a company of six in Denerim: myself, Warden Athras of the Dalish, and four Ferelden-born freemen.” Only three of the men were accounted for. Only three. Where was Connor? “The fourth is a mage with auburn hair and scars across his eyes, he wears a medic’s badge at his throat, he-”

“I can see this upsets you, Captain, but there were only five Wardens when my men-”

“ _We are six!”_ No, no, don’t take it out on him, don’t lose control like this. Find Connor: that was what mattered most. Carver would help her and that was who she went to first, Carver would lose his _mind_ if they told him Connor was gone or in danger.

“We did find a mage’s staff amongst your company’s belongings, Warden Captain. We assumed it belonged to the Dalish…” Kylon’s voice was uneasy as Genevieve snapped the covers off Hawke’s sleeping body. He didn’t react to the cold or her hands shaking him harshly. “Captain you can’t just shake someone out of embri-”

“A Warden you can!” She shouted, remembering the way Connor had struggled but still explained the draught the mages at Vigil’s Keep drank to fight off demons. “Warden Lieutenant Hawke you will wake up!” He had the taint just like she did, he could wake up as soon as his heart began to pound and his instinct to fight fought through the herb’s demand to sleep. “If I have to cut you, Carver, I will! Get up!” She tore off her gauntlet and slapped him.

She hit him _again_ , harder this time, and he finally grit his teeth and the cords of his neck tensed. His arms flexed and his face twisted, his body trying to move and struggling to wake up- but the struggle was enough. He felt pain and felt something holding him back from reacting to it. Carver Hawke had carried the taint for over ten years: it would be enough.

Hassick she could not afford to be as careful with. He had only been a Warden for a season: the taint was a reaction you had to condition yourself for, to know when to conjure up your own anger even when fear or panic wanted to take control first. She pulled back his blankets just like Carver’s, who was now rolling and trying to grunt his way through the cold drug, and she took Hassick hard at the throat with her bare hand. She pressed, forcing her palm down until his breaths seized in his chest, and when his face twitched she held on longer, until his fingers curled and his lips tried to pull open and choke. When she let go he gasped, face contorting in pain before his jaws locked together, cheeks flushed as his cold, brittle lungs clamped down under the weight of his own breaths. His eyes were blind when they cracked open but Genevieve didn’t stay to comfort him, she had one more Warden to find.

“Evie-?” Carver gasped, pushing himself up on one shoulder.

“Dress yourself, they’ve taken Connor,” was all she said to him as she left the room, ignoring Captain Kylon’s baffled reaction to how she handled the two distressed Wardens.

“Have you gone mad!” Kylon shouted at her.

“A member of my company has gone missing and the others are taking too long to get on their feet again, Captain, how would you have me respond?” She demanded, shouldering open the door to where An’eth had been kept. The Dalish hunter was curled up tightly on her side but she was not asleep: her white lips were thin and trembling, teeth chattering as her entire body shook. It reminded Genevieve of how Connor had been the morning after the demon attack, but there was no time to play nurse today and Genevieve barked at the junior warden as soon as she stepped inside.

“Warden Athras, you will stand up!” She ordered, and An’eth’s feverish eyes opened blindly at the noise. “ _Rise!_ Your heart has no room for these tricks and poisons! Rally and stand!”

“It- it’s so cold…”

“Did your companions die at the Joining for you to be _‘too cold’_? Is your clan disgraced by nothing but a flower?”

“C-Captain-!?” The girl clenched her eyes shut and there was shouting from the room next door.

“You were poisoned last night and the man who welcomed you to the Order is missing. Get angry, Athras! _Get up_ , and _get dressed!_ ” And then, before she could storm out and leave the elven Warden to fight through the toxic mess swimming through her blood, Evie saw what tried to chill her heart but just made her temper reignite all over again.

There on the ground next to An’eth’s shield and sword and spear: Connor’s staff. She picked up the obsidian-flecked weapon and carried it with her from the room, where she found Carver trying to get answers from Kylon, who was telling the Warden to sit and calm down.

“What did she mean?” He was repeating, teeth chattering and balance weak as his knees stayed bent and his feet stumbled trying to hold him up. “Who took him? Why? Where is he?”

“Warden, you’re unwell-”

“ _Where is he!?_ ”

“Lieutenant.” Genevieve said sharply, grabbing his attention and holding it. “You will dress and arm yourself, and then we will go see Lieutenant Howe where he is being taken care of. Neither myself nor Captain Kylon will repeat ourselves over and over again about what happened last night, all of you will be ready and awake before you get your answers.”

“Did _Perth_ do this?” he demanded, his voice stronger and fending off his shivers.

“Dress and _arm_ yourself, Lieutenant.” He stood there and he stared at her, and Genevieve lifted her chin at him as a challenge. “My rank or your seniority, Hawke. One of us leading this company until Nathaniel is well enough to give orders, and this is the _only_ time we will discuss it.” She made the offer and hated that she had to. Grey Warden ranks were fluid, their companies typically small with a command system that webbed out more than it linked up or down. Constables outranked Captains, Captains to Lieutenants, Lieutenants to Sergeants, Sergeants to Corporals, and Corporals finally to Ensigns and the Recruits at the very bottom of the hierarchy.

But this was Ferelden. Genevieve had not gone to Vigil’s Keep on orders from an Orlesian Warden Commander, but by Commander Surana’s good graces. Nathaniel had trust and loyalty that worked almost better than rank to make sure Genevieve answered to him, and Hawke had seniority after spending several years in Surana’s service. But their commanding officer was compromised, their corporal was missing, and Geneveieve was _Captain_ of the Grey.

“Aye, Captain.” He deferred to her. Good.

“Hurry up, Lieutenant,” she ordered curtly. “Wherever Connor is he is going to wake up soon: and we are going to be ready for when our Mage shows these fiends the mistake they made in harming him.”

* * *

 

He did wake up. He _did_.

He realized it when the howling and spinning and all the vast nothingness became cold. Cold. Connor was _so cold_ … He was too cold to fear demons, too cold to try opening his eyes- _he had eyes_. He was awake.

But he wasn’t alone, no, and he couldn’t see, no. He was moving- it was awful, make it stop- he didn’t want to be _moving!_

“ _Stop…”_ he barely heard the noise flutter past his lips, but he was so cold, so cold, _so cold…_

“Drink.” A voice told him, and his neck hurt where his head pried up, eyes taking in light but no figure or form. He was too scared to know what happened next, felt only the edge of a water skin, but then it became the whole spout shoved past his lips. And then- and then a _flood_ of something.

It wasn’t water. It didn’t _taste_ like water. His mouth was caked in stale disgust from food and drink and laughter- but he could taste this anyways. It tasted bitter. Metallic. He tried to spit it out, closed his tongue against the back of his throat and fought to breathe out. His lips tingled, it was too strong- too potent- it would stop his heart if he drank- no _no_ _don’t make him drink it…_

Fingers at his throat, _no_ , _don’t do this._ He tried to feel the taint around the firm, brittle fingers that prodded down hard on his throat, tried to choke him, forced him to _breathe-_

He hacked and breathed in the liquid, but then he swallowed it, and then more of it, and more. He spat and tried to move away when the mouth of the skin was taken back, heat crawling through his gut and chasing back the cold that had gripped him so hard. He was moving, his body was being shaken, his ears almost deaf to the jangle of buckles and clod of hooves. He was on his back and could feel neither the wind nor the sun- he was in a carriage. He was so cold but already overwhelmed with warmth that bled through his skin and dragged his blind eyes shut. His lips tingled and his throat was numb, his limbs too heavy to move.

“Sleep, my poor, poor boy…” No, not _her_ voice. No- let him go, stop moving, _stop this…_ _stop… no…_

The howling nothing of the Fade recaptured him, and there was nothing he could do.

* * *

 

Lieutenant of the Grey Nathaniel Howe had been taken hard and deep in his left flank with a thin dagger. The blade had pierced up into his lung and lanced something else Evie didn’t know enough about to put names to, but she knew a deadly injury when one was described to her, and in her chest the taint and the fear were coming to direct blows again.

Howe had been stabbed by a dagger crowned with a crow’s skull. It could not have been left in him by accident: he had been almost as affected by the poisoned wine as the rest of them. Whoever had stabbed him had _left_ the dagger in place to keep him from bleeding out and to deliver a message.

Antivan wine, Antivan herbs, Antivan Crows.

Castle Denerim’s _‘healers’_ were apothecaries and surgeons. The Breach wrought by Corypheus had devastated the bond many of Ferelden’s Spirit Healers had shared with their benevolent Fade counterparts, and most of them had been chased from cities and onto the swords of Templars during the war anyways. The Inquisition had saved some mages and the College was actively accepting the war’s survivors into its open arms, but the Fereldan capital had been insulted and cut ties with the Magi after the involvement of Tevinter Magisters at Castle Redcliffe. There were no magical healers at His Majesty’s court, and the city chantry didn’t have any in their employ either.

The surgeons were skilled, yes, and the apothecaries wise to their trade, but they had no magical abilities and a wound Connor could have eased and mended at least part way in only a few minutes had taken them hours to control and try to put in order. Had he not been a Grey Warden, Howe would be dead.

“His tolerance to pain and blood-loss are incredible,” the weedy little man in charge of Howe’s care tried to explain to them when Genevieve asked why their commanding officer, unconscious on a bed of bloodstained white linens, would not rise when they touched his hand or called his name. “But so is his resistance to the pain-relief and sleep aids we gave him. I was hesitant to give him even _more_ embrium after what we found in that wine the guards brought back, but if we’re careful with it he should come down from it easily.”

“What do you mean, _come down?_ ” An’eth asked, her lips still white but her focus better than Hassick’s, who still kept trembling from his chills. The apothecary gestured to the marksman before explaining.

“Embrium is a gift from the Maker but also a lesson from Him about temperance.” The apothecary was moving steadily on in years, and his voice was wheezy and breathless as he explained himself from under his thick brown robes. “It eases pain and breathing, and it warms the blood so that even very ill or very injured patients can sleep- but the cold feeling your friend is still experiencing is one of the drawbacks. A person can become dependent on embrium in order to calm down and sleep, and the chills leave the body weak and susceptible to fevers that the reagent’s own symptoms can mask until it’s too late. Warden Howe is in good hands here. He’ll be uncomfortable tomorrow when we let the embrium wear off completely, but he needs to sleep and heal first. Shall I make arrangements to have him taken to House Surana?”

“You can do that?” Genevieve asked.

“Tomorrow, not today.” Was the answer. “He is a Grey Warden and I’ll not stand between a man and his liege. I don’t know how Wardens handle things like this however, usually when a guardsman or one of His Majesty’s knights is badly wounded I send word to their families.”

Hawke correctly stated that they would leave that to House Surana’s chamberlain, and Genevieve agreed to have Howe taken to the estate as soon as he could be safely moved. His face was badly bludgeoned and gouged, deep bruises around his jaw and eyes, the deep cut from a boot’s heel dug into his cheek. But he was alive. It was horrible leaving him alone in that room with the apothecary but they _had to_.

King Alistair could not see them: he was locked in the same hall as yesterday but this time the doors were barred and the shouting from inside was uniform and blustering. The Landsmeet was not meeting in full, but there were enough Banns gathered for a regional discussion of _something_ that would take the King’s entire day. When Hassick asked the herald at the barred door who had called the meeting and was holding the court in such a loud and chaotic session, he told them it had been Arl Eamon Guerrin of Denerim’s demand.

Arl Guerrin’s Knight and a Crow Dagger in Nathaniel’s back, and now Connor’s father himself blocking the Grey Wardens from seeing the King? These Dog-Lords didn’t have the subtlety of The Game down yet, but they were certainly playing.

They reached House Surana and as soon as they were let inside Genevieve demanded two horses be readied from the stable.

“Hassick. Anyone you know in the city, anyone you _used_ to know, anyone you _think_ you know! Find anyone who saw _anything!_ An’eth, you’re a hunter: go with him.”

“Yes, Captain!”

“Aye, Ma’am!”

Genevieve and Carver only stayed at the estate long enough to tell Chamberlain Shianni what in the Maker’s Name had happened last night. She was stricken but not overwhelmed by it, insulted on her Arl’s behalf at the wrong struck against them.

“I won’t tell Seneschal Varel unless I have to- but I’ll send our two guardsmen to watch Warden Howe at the castle.”

“Will you be safe without them here?” Carver wisely asked, and the Chamberlain only smiled, running her hand down the smooth front of her silver-threaded apron.

“If the four of you are here then my staff and I have nothing to worry about. And if the four of you aren’t then we _still_ won’t have any problems.”

“It would put both of us at ease if the servants were dismissed for today, Chamberlain. I sincerely doubt the Arl would dock anyone’s pay in light of the situation.”

“There are only a handful of us anyways, but I’ll take your word as permission to make no changes to the ledger. Very well, Captain, from now until tomorrow morning House Surana will be empty. I will check the alienage for the elves I know work at the Gnawed Noble, anything I find out I’ll send to you.” Genevieve didn’t question how Shianni would manage that feat, she simply thanked the chamberlain and let the woman attend to her duties.

Only Alistair and Nathaniel would be able to tell them if the King had sent his summons to the Warden Commander yesterday or not. Genevieve wanted to send a message to him _now_ just in case the hours were against them, but Carver made her hold off as they hurried to House Guerrin for an audience. Genevieve was ready to meet her countrywoman.

The Arlessa was not in residence.

“She was at Castle Denerim yesterday.” Genevieve said, clinging _tightly_ to her temper and resisting the urge to let the taint bleed light from her eyes. She rejected her fear this time, took hold of the cold, cold, _cold_ disgust welling in her breast.

“Her Grace departed this morning in her carriage.” The servant at the door announced simply, like she was commenting on the weather. “She claimed to miss her daughter and spoke of great fatigue.” This morning? Then they would catch her.

“What of Ser Perth?” Carver asked. And the girl was a _good_ liar…

“Ser _Perth?_ I had not known he was in Denerim at present, he rarely leaves young Lady Rowan’s side.” But it was a dangerous and deceitful lie she told them, and Genevieve cut their intrusion on the house’s doorstep short. They returned to House Surana _seething…_

There were ravens in the house’s modest rookery, and Genevieve wrote in her smallest, neatest print as much information as could fit on the slip of paper:

_‘Crows in Denerim. Guerrin taken. Howe injured, will live. No proof, suspect House Guerrin. We will find him. -B.’_

Hassick and An’eth were back from the market district with plenty more than Genevieve had hoped as she and Hawke saddled their horses, supplies gathered and ready.

“Wheel tracks too far apart for a city wagon cut into the mud by the back door,” An’eth reported, her chills burned away by anger as she slung her shield onto her Halla’s saddle and hoisted her spear up over her shoulder before climbing onto the white animal’s back. “Some of the tracks were walked over, but at least two horses, maybe four pulling it.” Not a wagon: a carriage, and a rich one to have so many animals. The Arlessa had _not_ left _this morning:_ she’d fled _last night_ and Genevieve would put a crown on that bet.

“I want to blame the brew-master,” Hassick snarled, checking his two long daggers with an angry hiss and snap before righting his crossbow over his back and mounting up. “I _want_ _to,_ but no man working in this city can turn down two month’s wages on a single jug of wine. Perth made the order, paid the price of the wine and walked away: it was a second man who offered eighty silver for a pouch of red petals to go in the drink for us.”

“And you’re sure he was telling the truth?” Genevieve demanded, snapping the reins to get her horse moving, Connor’s Forder and the house’s old work animal left behind in the stable as they left.

“Story never changed no matter how many times I asked him.” That was not a yes, and it didn’t sound good enough.

“His story never changed no matter how many times you _hit him_.” Nevermind, An’eth’s scathing comment eased Genevieve’s worries.

“It’s Denerim, it’s a rough town, Arthas!”

Genevieve had never travelled into Southern Ferelden before. She had fought in the Frostbacks at the Inquisition’s order and down across much of Orlais, but of the east she knew only the northern half of the country and its Bannorn. She knew Redcliffe’s location from maps but, thankfully, the roads were simple creatures and Carver knew how to take them from the city gates and up onto the Imperial Highway.

This was no pleasant country ride. They did not trot along and tell jokes and stories to one another under the dark grey sky, facing into the cold winter wind. Once their horses were free to run, they _ran_.

A mile of running, a mile at a canter, a mile again of running. The extra weight of tents had been left behind along with the luxuries of bedrolls and extra clothes. This was not going to be long or comfortable journey: it was almost a week and a half from Denerim to Redcliffe at a normal pace, and by the Maker’s Grace Genevieve would not let them get that far!

They overtook caravans, country wagons, and merchant travellers. They rode hard to the south and followed the Highway with its high, smooth stones that the horses could travel easily. Midday had already passed before they left the city and Hassick reined hard to speak with a patrol of the King’s Men marching north: had they seen a carriage of Redcliffe or Denerim carry quickly to the south?

The men said _yes._

Their horses stopped for no one else with Genevieve’s shield on her arm and her griffon standing proud against the rain when it began to fall and beat down on them. Ferelden fields and hills of deep winter green swept past them and as afternoon bled into evening, they saw something:

Crates and boxes? A wooden _barricade?_ It would not stand any longer than the next patrol from Denerim or the local Bann. Through the middle it was little more than a stretch or two of plain timber, the crates no higher than a man’s chest. There were men ducking and moving behind the barricade but making no move to tear it down. Had they found their Crows, or were these Ser Perth’s missing knights?

“ _Wardens!_ ” She shouted, taking her helmet up from its strap at her belt and shoving the heavy silverite walls down over her head. It was close and cold and heavy, crushing her hair and dampening the striking clatter of her horse’s hooves on the highway road. The wind was cold but the taint burned under armour and she used her knees to guide her horse to the left: her shield to guard the flank and left hand on the reins, sword drawn in her other hand as the rain spat down on them.

Carver’s horse came up through her place, his winged helmet spitting water and his sword’s long, aggressive edge bared in the creeping darkness. An’eth’s Halla _glided_ over the stones, rearing its horned head with a high bleat as the elven Warden hefted her ribboned spear.

Hassick’s crossbow spat twice in the rain, two cracks of black plunging one into the crates and another through the throat of a coward hiding behind the wood. Let them be highwaymen, let them be Crows, Genevieve did _not care:_ they were _in her way_.

Her shield screeched as several crossbows answered Hassick’s attack, the silverite taking the glancing shot without issue before Carver’s horse _screamed_. The animal reared its head, lost its footing and its charge and toppled violently in the rain, blood streaming from its face. The Warden astride it barely kept his sword as he swore and pulled his feet free at the last moment to follow his horse’s fall and roll from its kicking, writhing weight. Genevieve couldn’t watch him as her own mount kept its charge, but An’eth’s spear howled against the wind and caught one of their enemies through his shoulder, throwing him to the ground without killing him.

Not Highwaymen: Genevieve’s horse took to the dark sky with a leap and the man directly on other side of the barrier refused to cower and duck away from its hooves. She saw the blade and swore, her horse’s shrill scream echoing Carver’s dead mount as its weight came down on the blade, blood mixing with rain and the point of the weapon forcing the saddle to buckle under her thigh. She kicked her feet free from the stirrups and braced.

The horse landed hard enough to break its own legs, back legs kicking and Genvieve’s greaves cutting and scraping across the stone bridge. She rose to her left, shield up, stepping over and away from the dying animal and taking her attacker full to the chest, knocking free the twisted dagger drawn to fight her with.

 _“That horse was worth more than your mother’s thighs ever made!_ ” Her sword circled over her head and she swore in her native tongue, Orlesian curling and slashing past her lips the way her sword cut the air before she turned, shield covering the first attacker, and she rammed the pommel with a roar into the helmet of the second who tried to rush her from behind. She caught him over one eye, the rebound of her wrist enough to let her pull and swing her arm down, steel cutting through leather and snagging on chainmail across his arm.

The first one made a bold move and jumped at her shield, grabbing it at its round edge and trying to wrench her arm down. She ripped her sword free from the second man’s armour and pivoted to take the strain off her shoulder before she hurt herself, and plunged the blade through his body. His mail rent wide open, blood thick and reeking in the cold as it hit the guard of her sword, sparing her hands from his _filth_.

“ _Die, rat!”_ She hissed, shield braced on sword, and she turned her whole body and both weapons to rip the blade sideways through as much of his torso as she could take out before pulling the blade from his disembowled corpse. _“Kneel, snake and lift your eyes to the Maker!_ ”

 _“Orlesi-_ ” Not Crows, because her language offended the fool before Hassick’s crossbow cracked again and blood fountained from the far side of his skull, the body dropping as dead weight.

“Where is he!?” She stepped over the corpse and watched Carver’s sword come down once, take the rebound and strike again, flail back and plow forward with the pommel onto an unmarked shield that failed and fell. The broken guard gave the Warden all the time and space he needed to cleave head from shoulders in one swift, decisive blow. “ _Where is he!?”_

Carver’s flank was protected by An’eth’s Dalish shield, the green varnish on the diamond-shaped barrier sending the rain down off its face in thick drops. The hand-axe she wielded chopped and slashed, its back end hooked and sharp enough to catch the helmet of one attacker and rip it sideways: his head and shoulders followed with a clumsy stumble that led his gut into An’eth’s armoured knee. Her elbow took him at the base of the neck, and when he fell the pointed end of her shield slammed down on his neck a second time with a satisfying crunch.

The crates next to Genevieve toppled and her shield rose before she saw Hassick slammed down under another man, but when the attacker brought his daggers up in a great show to stab through the Warden, Hassick’s hand ripped something from his belt and he forced his upper body to bend forward, giving him the reach to smash the glass vial against the man’s half-obscured face. There was an immediate hiss and howl of something bitter and awful charring the air, and the attacker dropped his knives to claw at his face, screaming.

 _“That’s courtesy of Compounder Ansera!_ ” Hassick laughed, taking one of the fallen knives, rising to one knee, and plunging the dagger down into his enemy’s shoulder. He drew and stabbed again, and again, until the blood and acid layered the wet ground

The road became quiet after that. The only sound beyond the rain, the wind, and Genevieve’s own heavy breathing were hoofbeats echoing off down the highway. When she looked, she saw only the outline of an armoured man on the back of a frantically galloping horse.

“We follow-” She said.

“On _what!?_ ” Carver shouted. She looked at him and saw him with his bloodied sword standing there with knees bent like he was still ready to fight. He laid his sword down on the stones and reached up with both hands, wrenching his helmet off and showing his flushed and gasping face. “We’ve one halla left alive between the four of us! She’s a full damned day ahead of us with a four horse carriage spiriting down the Highway! At her pace she’ll be at Redcliffe Castle within four days- on foot it’ll take us that long just to get to South Reach where _maybe_ the Arl will give us horses!”

“Carver-”

“ _No!_ I’m not being insubordinate, _Captain_ , I’m being realistic!” He was so wound up he tossed his helmet down hard with a clatter at his feet. “We have no _proof!_ We have no concrete way to say _‘yes, she has him, that bitch stole our friend’!_ We know she did- she _had_ to, no one else in this entire bloody kingdom could have done it! But all we have are Crows and Highwaymen, and the _moment_ she enters Redcliffe castle, there is _no way_ to get inside!” Was it rain, sweat, or tears running down his face? Did it matter? There was no taint or twisted anger in Carver, just pain that shook his voice until it broke.

“We’re not the Inquisition. And if we do _anything_ to embarrass the Grey Wardens it will come down harder on Surana’s head than anything before it.” He said, shaking his head like he was dizzy. “Even if we walk all night we won’t be back in Denerim before dawn. Even if we leave again without sleep, it’s four days to Vigil’s Keep. It’s three more to Highever- the place Surana actually _is_ , and then it’s _another week back to Denerim and one more to Redcliffe if we aren’t **held up at court first**!”_ He shouted the last part so hard his voice went raw and wet.

Was it rain, sweat, or tears running down her face? Did it matter?

An’eth pulled her helmet off, face stricken and elven eyes wide with more fear than Evie had ever seen in her before. She was shaking her head.

“We’re Grey Wardens… we can’t just…”

“ _Why_ did they take him?” Hassick demanded over her quiet plea. “ _Why!?_ Arl Eamon disowned him in front of all of us! Why would they do this? Why send the _Antivan Crows_ of all people after him!? And if it wasn’t House Guerrin then _who?”_

“He said he knew something,” Genevieve finally spoke, her voice thick and the words hardly able to carry. “Last night. He said he needed to tell Surana something important today, that he was going to write to him.”

And it came over them heavily, frigid like the embrium that they had each clawed their way free from, numbing like the rain slowly drizzling over the carnage of the Highway. It was something they’d denied, not wanted to consider, something not even spoken between Evie and Carver when alone at House Surana. If a family had a secret, a secret that one of their own was willing to take to their political rival, a secret he hadn’t even been able to speak to his closest friends, and that family had _means_ , had _money_ , had _power_ , then what was the obvious solution to their problem after cutting off the traitorous limb?

“They made a point of not killing Howe,” Genevieve whispered. “And for the rest of us, we weren’t even robbed.” The Crows charged a premium for every life taken.

“It doesn’t explain the carriage _or_ the Arlessa’s flight from the city!” Hassick shouted, desperate and grasping. “It doesn’t explain an ambush lying in wait for us! These weren’t highwaymen!”

They searched the bodies. A numb, difficult task in the darkness and the rain. There were no letters, no orders. No guild or lord crests on their weapons, on their armour, on a single thing they owned. These were Fereldan mercenaries, men who could fight but not in service to a Bann or Arl, not officially. The one who had escaped would have been the only one they may have found anything on, and he was miles away in the night.

They walked one mile back along the Imperial Highway in the pouring rain. An’eth’s Halla was the only mount to survive and it carried their saddlebags at a slow walk. They stopped in the dark and sat against the wall of the highway. There was no mage to light the road or tents to unfurl and cower under. They were soaked, and they were cold, and they were lost.

“He’s gone.”

Genevieve’s heart broke and Carver did not sleep all night for his tears…


	22. Step By Step

The long, cold walk back to Denerim brought them precious hours to think. By the time the four of them on foot were brought back into the dawn-lit front court of House Surana, the Wardens had a plan.

“He was there when I woke up: I’ll be there when we find him.”

“Warden Connor was the first person to believe in me when I came to the Vigil: I’ll be the last one to give up on him now.”

Hassick and An’eth shed their blue and silverite armour and left the suits in Shianni’s capable, protective hands. The chamberlain withdrew gold off the house’s ledger and both Wardens were outfitted in the market with strong leather, fine mail, and good steel. An’eth removed the ribbons from her spear and tied them to her wrist instead, Hassick sanded and scraped the griffon off his crossbow’s haft. They kept their pendants, packed smaller saddlebags, and spent a single night in the Denerim estate before leaving at dawn the next morning for Redcliffe. Hassick rode Connor’s horse, An’eth left her darling Halla and rode a mare from the market.

Their orders were: “You will watch, you will wait, and you will report anything that you see.” They were adventurers and nothing more, invisible and indistinguishable from any other sell-sword duo on the Imperial Highway. They would go to Redcliffe Village until the Grey Wardens contacted them again if something changed, and they would look for rumours, for proof, for any reason at all to believe their missing Warden was being held by the Arl’s family.

“I’ll be here until I’m strong enough to ride,” Nathaniel was ashen-faced and weak from the surgeon’s work. He would recover, but not today or tomorrow. “Find Surana and tell him what’s happened. Crow Contracts aren’t written quickly or easily, this was planned and we need Zevran’s expertise. Maker’s Mercy: at least _warn_ him that there are Crows involved.”

Carver was gaunt and stone-faced as arrangements were made. There was no seeing the King: he was with the Landsmeet, he was with his Banns, he was with the Arl of Redcliffe, he was with the Arl of Denerim, he was just not available. Genevieve left messages she doubted would reach him but nothing would stop Nathaniel from brow-beating his way through Castle Denerim once he was well enough to do more than stagger around his room. Howe called it sabotage keeping them from His Majesty’s ear, Genevieve agreed, and Carver was inconsolable.

He and Genevieve would either meet Surana on the road to Vigil’s Keep, or from the Vigil to Higheveer. There was no point sending another bird _to_ Highever: it took them nearly three to four days to fly such a distance, barring rain or wind or simply being shot out of the sky or hunted by larger beasts. At this point the first one Alistair _may_ have sent the night Connor was carried off could have arrived at Highever and Genevieve’s second missive overshoot if he’d left. There was simply no knowing until they found him, and that meant they _had_ to find him.

“I failed him,” was what the other Warden told her as they readied their new horses for the ride north.

“That is preposterous.” Genevieve scolded. She knew Carver was taking this terribly hard, but guilt would get them nowhere.

“I should have told Perth to _fuck off_ if he was so sorry.”

“And then he would have ordered the wine and the poison anyways.” She countered him. “Do you really think any of us would have been wise or petty enough to throw it out?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Carver emphasized. “It _feels_ like I did something wrong, it keeps coming _at me_.”

“You care for him and someone has put him in danger.” Honestly, she would never understand Fereldans and their _intense_ need to pretend the only way to embrace a friend was with crude words and shouting. “If he is gone, Carver, then deal with the people who took him away and _then_ mourn him, not the other way around!”

“We’re riding in the wrong direction to do that!”

“We’re riding to bring the strongest mage in Ferelden news that his _protégé_ has been kidnapped or killed by his political rivals,” She rebuked him again, hotly this time. “He weathered exhaustion and blood to call Zevran’s bluff before, what do you think he’s going to do this time, when it’s real?”

“Not leave enough of House Guerrin behind for me to get any satisfaction from,” Hawke’s eyes were red, his emotions rampaging across his face.

“When we find him, Carver, for Andraste’s sake: kiss him.”

“What- in front of _you?”_ He scoffed, finishing the last belt and fitting the bridle to his horse’s mouth. “No thank you, _Captain._ I wouldn’t ask him to make a choice like that.”

“ _Ugh,_ Fereldans!” Genevieve threw her hands up, storming from her own horse over to his and feeling irritation burn her skin when he dared look at her with alarm. “What choice, Carver? Do candles burn lower if they are lit second or third in the row? Have I neglected you, somehow?”

“You and I? I’m not worried about,” He said shrewdly, but he was backed up against his horse as she approached and grabbed him hard by the top of his breastplate. “We have a good thing. Or had, _whatever_ , but the way he looks at-” She covered his lips with hers, melting his words down to a soft tumble of breath and voice from his nose.

His eyes fluttered shut and she felt the horse he was leaning on adjust its feet as their weight leaned on its flank. It only took him a moment to come into his own and grip at the edges of her armor for something to anchor and twist her with, telling her to sway her hips and tilt her head for a deeper kiss. There, this was the warden she’d let competitive spirit convince her to take a chance with, a lover who could kiss her jaw and breathe down so hot it sent something like warm oil spilling and soaking down through her clothes, ignoring the armour, caressing her skin. But when he let the kiss end and the caress fade, his face was down and his black bangs hanging to hide his eyes from her.

“He trusts you when he is scared,” Genevieve whispered, touching his face with one hand but not forcing Carver to look at her. “He goes to you when he is upset. He is just as much at peace with you in his sleep as he is with me. I don’t know his heart, Carver, but I know him, and I know this: if I find him before you do, even if only by a moment, I will kiss him twice. Once from me, and once from you. Promise me you will do the same.”

He lifted his head slowly, blue eyes bloodshot and hurting again, but he curled his lips in with a slowly building sense of strength. He nodded.

“One from me, one from you, and one from me again.” He agreed, and then nudged his face forward and up, pressing his forehead up and letting the bridge of his nose rest against hers. It made her eyes close, heart beating warmly with the affectionate display. “But hear me, Evie: when I find Ser Perth, not you, not Surana, not the Maker Himself will stop me from cutting the head off that snake.”

“Good,” she agreed, and then slid herself forward again just enough to catch his smiling lips with hers. It was a short, sweet kiss, an agreement built on vengeance that she was happy to uphold. “Now get on your horse, Warden, the Commander isn’t going to warn himself.”

An hour later, they were beyond Denerim’s city gates and galloping up the Pilgrim’s Path to the north.

* * *

 

That evening, Soren uncurled a small slip of paper from a Highever servant’s hand. He was draped over a plush reading chair by the roaring hearth fire, the flames freshly stoked and warming the fine rooms he and Zevran had been given. Dinah was curled up on the rug under his propped up leg, head on her paws and jowls flopping as she snored in the warmth. The young mabari missed Kieran and her old sire Tagar, but was good company in the cold Highever evenings.

Oghren, Sigrun, Hestel and Warden Clyde were staying down the hall from this two-bedroom suite in Castle Cousland. Soren had seen them not long ago before retiring for the night, and he’d been surprised by the knock on the door that had put Zevran understandably on edge. A message by bird bearing His Majesty King Alistair’s ribbons on the creature’s ankle: he was pleased not to have to wait until morning to read it after several days already wasted in Highever.

He stretched the curled message out between the tips of his burnt fingers, and gave a loud, disruptive laugh.

“Either that’s good news or you’ve lost your mind,” Zevran commented, Dinah grunting on the rug as she stopped snoring.

“Here, _hermano,_ read this.” Soren was not going to get up again until he went to bed, but held the message out between his fingers.

“You know, I’m never going to get past how badly you mangle those Antivan words,” Zevran scolded him, leaning over the back of his chair and snatching the paper from him.

“I speak more old Dwarven than Antivan anyways,” he answered innocently.

“But more Antivan than El’vhen! Such a shame, how does Morrigan put up with you?”

“She puts up with me because I make Alistair write messages like that.” He could hear Zevran snickering over his head as he read the words to himself, then gave voice to them:

“‘ _Fuck you, you were right. I hate you. Come to Denerim. Bring the Formari Ansera. Regards. Fuck you.’_ Do you think he’s upset about something?”

“I think _Warden Guerrin’s_ honesty is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Soren kicked one foot over the other, folding his hands pleasantly over his chest and taking a satisfied breath in the warm room.

“Shall I make arrangements for our departure?”

“If you like, but we won’t be able to leave at first light.” He considered the situation for a moment, then closed his eyes and settled further down in his chair. “I won’t have anyone assuming we’re running away from anything. We have to stop at Vigil’s Keep for Ansera on the way too, so depending on the road’s condition if we leave at mid-day tomorrow we’ll arrive at the Vigil by evening two or three days later.” Ansera’s involvement was no doubt Connor’s doing, but Soren was willing to forgive him. Alistair was furious, Soren was right about something, and that meant House Guerrin had seen something backfire all over them. Good.

“Don’t fall asleep like that,” Zevran chastised him.

“I had to listen to the Bann of Solider’s Way complain about road tariffs for two _solid hours_ today. I can sleep where and how I like.”

“Dinah! Don’t let him fall asleep!” No-

“ _Zevra-!_ ” He was cut off by two heavy, excited mabari paws slamming down on his gut, snapping him upright with a wheeze. He placed his scarred hands on Dinah’s large, panting face, the folds of her skin warm and spongey as he tried to convince her to get down. All he succeeded in doing was convincing the mabari to move her front paws to either side of him, and then _hoist herself up_ on to his lap. She thumped her massive head against his shoulder and settled like that, content. “Ugh… you two are terrible.”

“She’s very well trained, no?”

“The Kennel-master is a liar.” That or Kieran was a bad influence on the war hound’s training, but he wasn’t about to say as much when Zevran was right here to do it for him.

“That boy is a _treasure_.” Mm, very…

Soren did eventually retire to a proper bed, and the next morning he made His Majesty’s command to him known to Teyrn Cousland, who wasn’t about to get in his way.

“Honestly, the most you could expect to do here anyways is ride to Soldier’s Peak itself and throw rocks at the gate until they let you in.” Fergus explained dismissively. “I do appreciate you coming all this way again, Surana, but an ultimatum is an ultimatum and if Soldier’s Peak doesn’t answer this one before the snow starts, we’ll know what to do.”

“May Andraste Guide us to a different outcome, your grace.”

“Well she’d better hurry up. It’s not you and I who need guidance it’s those Orlesian snakes who’ve slithered up the pass.” Soren politely agreed and dismissed himself to make final preparations for his departure.

This included a two-hour meeting with Amaranthine’s western and Highever’s eastern Banns who had gathered in the city. The discussions were not new, the topics were tiresome, and yet somehow the polite dance and side-stepping kept him entertained throughout. He put down any discussion of succession in Amaranthine as being many, many years down the line: he wouldn’t have to fear his Calling, the real one this time, for at least another ten or twenty years, and it wasn’t any of the Banns’ business anyways.

“But wouldn’t it be wise for House Surana to have a successor, your grace?”

“House Surana is, by Chantry law, only myself, Bann Heenan. It begins and ends with me.” He would be _incredibly_ hesitant to believe any elven whoever approaching him after twenty years, a Blight, and two wars to say that they just-so-happened to be related. A few had tried it immediately after the Blight, but he’d shown them what a dangerous and foul-minded game that was to play.

“But should the Divine make _changes_ to those laws?” The Bann needled, so he addressed it.

“ _Should_ Divine Victoria allow elves and humans to intermarry by law, and _should_ the Landsmeet recognize such unions amongst Fereldan nobility, and _should_ the children _of_ those unions be recognized- you ask for quite the laundry-list of maybes, your lordship.”

“And yet what would Amaranthine do should anything _happen_ to you, your grace? This is a most important matter for a man of your age.” _His age_ , Soren was only a few years past thirty.

“Amaranthine belongs to the Grey Wardens, and our order is much smaller and more tightly controlled than our Orlesian brothers- something this conflict has highlighted. My constable would succeed me and if he felt poorly suited to the role he would help elect a proper successor for both the Wardens and the Arling.” What Soren did not mention was that his highest ranked Wardens had each taken their Joinings within a year or two of his own. If Soren heard his Calling, Nathaniel’s or Sigrun’s would only be a few years behind him. It would have to be someone younger, someone with a good head for politics, for not getting into trouble, someone people liked and found easy to trust.

Connor. He was thinking of Connor. The young mage had saved and resettled a village-worth of people without losing his wits according to Sigrun. By Lanaya’s word he handled the Dalish and their traditions respectfully and politely. He’d been unhappy but diligent on the Western Approach for four months. He was powerful and talented in matters of the Fade, and had woven himself in tightly to the fabric of the Vigil faster than anyone Soren had brought to the fortress before. A few more years of experience and training and yes, Soren would have a fine answer to the Banns’ question of successor. But _until then…_

“Bann Heenan, for the last time: I have a mistress and a good, healthy son by her. If Divine Victoria changed the law tomorrow I would name him heir to whatever private wealth I have and that would be the end of it. Your niece is a charming and greatly accomplished young swordswoman, but she doesn’t want a Grey Warden for a husband and my lady would be very unhappy to hear us still discussing this topic. I do know, however, that Bann Talbind of Amaranthine recently…” And on and on and on, sometimes he wondered if Banns ever talked as much as Irving had often accused the Fraternities of droning through the hours.

With the prospect of leaving Highever guiding him like a light, Soren weathered the tedium of politely declining to discuss Kieran’s marriage prospects. The boy was twelve: his interests were racing his friends through the Vigil, wrestling with Dinah, and aspiring to successfully pickpocket Zevran. The Chantry only frowned on half-elven marriages to humans, it didn’t forbid them, but right now and from this point forward Soren did. Kieran had nothing but his attachment to Soren’s fame as Hero of Ferelden, there was nothing to barter for here!

“No.”

“But _your grace,_ ”

“No.” Maker’s Breath, he was twelve!

“Arl Surana,” Another one, by Andraste. “Am I correct in overhearing that you are searching out a suitable hall to squire your son?” _No!_

“Warden Commander!” Soren had run out of deities to call on, but he was thankful just the same as Sigrun came busying through the hall to find him, cheerful and direct about marching right through anyone in her way. “A message just arrived for you, sir. The others also wanted me to tell you we’ll be ready to head out soon.” She spoke loudly and happily while he remained standing straight with his arms behind him, his crimson robe folded and tucked around his silverite armour. He accepted the thin curl of parchment from Sigrun, curious about the griffon seal on it: it was from the Denerim estate. He nodded politely and said something appropriate to the Bann nearby who asked if he was leaving, because yes he was, and then peeled back the wax over his finger and deftly rolled out the message.

_‘Crows in Denerim. Guerrin taken. Howe injured, will live. No proof, suspect House Guerrin. We will find him. -B.’_

He read it again, just to make sure he read it correctly.

“Um- Commander?” Sigrun noticed the break in his focus, and Soren let the paper roll back into a tight bundle on his palm.

“Attend me, Warden.” Was all he said before he started walking. He did not say goodbye to the confused Banns, he did not bid farewell to the Teyrn: he walked.

_Quickly._

* * *

 

He woke up, he was sent back to the Fade. He woke up, and he was sent back to the Fade. Connor woke up and he was sent _right back to the Fade_.

Every time he fell back through the shattered grey he lost all sense of time or space or self. Was it embrium they gave him? Were they trying to _kill_ him? Unless they were feeding his sleeping body then he hadn’t eaten in what could have been days- a single, proper dose of embrium could keep someone asleep for _hours_ and they just kept putting him under! And it wasn’t a proper dosage, not if he could taste it in the moments before he lost consciousness again! They were going to _kill_ him!

His heart could stop! His lungs could seize! He could catch a fever so deep it left him blind and mute for the rest of his life! They had to stop giving it to him- they had to let him _wake up!_

Connor heard his mother’s voice every time he woke up and he felt the bitter, thick, cold brew slosh down his throat. The last time he’d woken up he hadn’t even been able to try and resist it- his eyes had been fogged over with darkness both real and imagined, or had he simply not opened them? It had been such a short snatch of awareness he wasn’t even sure anymore. What he did know was this: he was still moving, but it was slower now.

Slower, because he was _seeing things_ in the Fade now, but only just. The outline of a building, the crag of a cliff, the streaked yellow sky of the abyss. The hailstorm of fragmented dreams were clumping together to form floating islands, webs of unconsciousness and a lattice-work of almost real illusions. He was slowing down, wherever they were taking him they were nearly there.

The Fade rippled and sucked back. He heard nothing but his heart thrashing madly in his ears, felt the cold come swimming over his skin and chatter his teeth, rattling his bones as he gasped a thin flute of air into his compressed lungs. It _hurt_ , it hurt _so much_ \- but he’d been in the Fade and now he was awake and it wouldn’t last- it _would not last_ …

But it was different. He heard himself and his body, but nothing else- maybe the rumble of something, the deep almost non-existent sound of- of fire? Was it fire? Fire crackling and gnawing at wood. He could smell smoke over the sour stink of his own sweating and soiled body. He wasn’t being jostled or twisted, he wasn’t _moving_.

Connor was on a bed. His eyes felt swollen shut, but he was on a bed, in a room, with a fireplace trying to help him fight off the shivering pain sucking through his flesh. The carriage and the horses and his mother were gone: they’d arrived.

“Easy now, Enchanter…” A male voice he didn’t know hushed, a wide hand he didn’t like touching his sweat-stained brow and brushing back the ragged twists of his soiled hair. “You survived the journey and it was very difficult, no? But you are still breathing, and I will give you something to aid with that now too. I had not known Grey Wardens were so resilient! Never would I have expected to need so much to keep one man asleep.” The hand spread itself under the back of his neck, invasive and unwanted but firm. His skin was clammy and when his head was propped up Connor felt the shakes and trembles from the cold echo all the way down his body. He couldn’t even move his hands, Maker help him, he was so cold- how could his sweat not be ice?

The cup was warm, so warm- he had to drink just for that fact. It was warm and it went down, his mouth filthy like the rest of him and caked with vileness he couldn’t get away from. His tongue was heavy and dead in his mouth, teeth soft and sore, lips cracked and waxy. He drank what was warm and tried so hard to open his eyes, just a flutter, for only a moment…

“ _We will bring you down slowly…_ ” No, no he’d taken embrium again, the voice was echoing- “ _Over… and hours of… worry… just fine.”_ No…

Connor landed with both feet back in the Fade again, too stunned by his own stupidity to make sense of his surroundings. He’d swallowed it. The same medicine that would _kill_ him if he kept taking it- and he’d just _swallowed it_.

 _“Idiot!”_ Not like it would have made a Maker-Damned difference one way or the other! _“Andraste’s Flaming Tits! He handed it to me and I **drank it!** ”_ He hadn’t even fought back! Hadn’t resisted it! Had just opened his mouth and swallowed like some idiot babe! He would have wound up taking it anyways but at least he could have put up a fucking fight!

He threw fire from his hands because _sod it!_ He crafted hands for himself, in gauntlets, with vambraces of rich dark leather! He worked the blue and silverite of his armour up his shoulder where his pauldron bloomed and coiled across his back and arm to protect it! He kicked with his boots and let fire spew across the soggy dreamscape, fluttering the silvered edges of his long tunic. He bore weight at his hips from his belts and supplies: the knife he should have plunged into the man’s throat! His staff that knocked against the back of his calves as he hunched forward and threw his hands with arcs of violent rage.

 _“Let me out!_ ” He screamed into the endless nothing of the Fade. He reached up to his scarred face to make sure he still had it, his auburn hair too long and hanging free past his cheeks as he ducked his head, clutched it with both hands, and dropped to his knees. “ _LET ME OUT!_ ”

He would not stay here he would not stay trapped like _this!_ Let his anger call any demon within miles to him! Let them come at him and fall where they stood with their poisoned promises in their mouths! Nothing they brought would be anything compared to that _vulture_ leering over his sleeping head!

Demons should not have answered him as quickly as he did, and had he been calmer Connor would have realized and questioned it. He heard sounds, noises beyond the watery echo of the nothing around him, and with a swift push from both legs he was standing, eyes open and awareness scorching the dream. He demanded solid ground and found it: no spongey moss or dusty grey _‘grass’_. He was bound here, he was trapped here: he would _fight_ here!

_Give me your **rage** -_

“Come and take it from me, you scaly little _beast_!” Fire blossomed in front of him, needle-fine fingers of glowing anger and outrage scarring the false ground.

Connor’s staff arced down past his arm and spat two bolts of liquid violet light, serpentstone, paragon’s lustre- _he didn’t care_. He wanted lightning and he wanted it _now_ , with a frigid blast of crystalized will at the end to stagger and choke the demon until it faded to black ember and dust from the assault.

He turned, swung hard, and let his staff sock straight through the face of a smaller floating creature who screamed of remorse and sadness before he covered its writhing body with immolating white flames.

The ground at his feet erupted with lines of white, blue, and gold: three marks he drew in his mind and painted with his gloved fingers, following the designs marked in an old book from Skyhold, before they ignited as a protective barrier behind him. His staff spat a thick, heavy web of indigo lightning from its head, tangling and tearing through another small beast that howled the injustice of betrayal and deceit and debts owed and honour breached. Something behind him crossed the glyphs and he clenched his free hand in a fist, twisting his arm and ripping his shoulder up without turning to face the creature that screeched, recoiled, and shattered into a hundred dusty pieces.

The battle ended with his lightning raining from the off-yellow sky, spearing through decayed memories of corpses, the haunted faces of remembered pain, the real, throbbing, bleeding heart of his anger.

He was left standing in an imaginary rotunda, just a wide, round space with windows cut into the walls to provide light from the illusionary sun. If he wanted to escape he would have to progress forward from the rotunda up the stairs before him to the door ahead. It almost looked like a part of Kinloch Hold, though not a room he specifically knew.

But Connor was not here because a demon had captured him- not a Fade demon anyways. So Connor did not progress forward through the rotunda further into the dream.

Instead he climbed out one of those stone windows, and dropped into the abyss.

And of course he landed back in the middle of that same rotunda, but it didn’t make a difference.

He climbed out the window and he fell. He slid with both feet braced on a hillside of sunlight and dropped neatly back onto the flat stone floor of the windowed room. It didn’t hurt and it wasn’t frightening.

But it wasted time.

It wasted time until the stones began to ripple, to fade out at the edges, to-

“There… that should make you feel better…” To cold. Cold, _cold_ , he was so cold again. With a shallow gasp that _ached_ across his ribs Connor tried to open his eyes, to be _awake_ for once. His body was shaking so badly he felt it rattle across his shoulders and pin his elbows to his sides, his chest vibrating so hard no single breath he gasped for could fill his lungs. His heart was erratic in his chest, beating frantic and hard under his ears. His fingers and hands were too _cold_ to feel, the embrium numbing everything from his waist down so he didn’t know if his legs moved or not- if he even _had_ legs still. “Easy now, Enchanter. Feel my hand on your chest? I’m going to help you breathe, follow the pressure of my hand and try to keep your sternum against my palm. In, now out… In, now out…”

The hand _pushed_ on him when he said out, meaning he could only breathe in when told to. _Out_ went all the air, _in_ went what little he could draw. His mouth felt swollen and raw, breaths whistling at the base of his throat where he could hardy breathe.

“You had a medic’s badge on your throat, that’s good! It means we can discuss these things together- once you’re well enough to speak again, of course.” Old man, not too old- not _frail_. Accented voice, not Fereldan. No gasps or stutters of an old senile fool, but the grave weight of years and experience. Accent from where? “I’ll admit, this is a bit of a first for me, such an exciting thing to come across at this point in my career. You’re one of the first patients I’ve ever had where if I make any mistakes you’ll know right away! Ah, I hope the pressure does not confound me.” Not Ferelden nor Orlais, Nevarran maybe? Not a Marcher… “Ah! Finally with eyes open- but I don’t like the look of them. A moment, please, and I will fetch the drops.”

The hand left his chest and it became _much harder_ to breathe again. He couldn’t feel his hands, couldn’t raise his arms, couldn’t move his legs, couldn’t see worth a _damn_ …

“Here we have them.” The man’s voice said with the active splash and stir of something thin and liquid. “Pardon my hand, Enchanter.” A warm, rough palm that smelled of elfroot covered his cheek and rested against his mouth, trying to turn his face. A thumb brushed his eye and he clenched his teeth around his wheezing breaths, too weak to flinch away. Something cold, _cold, so cold_ , dripped into his eye. It made light blossom in the corner of his grey vision, and there was a tap of metal on glass before another drop spilled across his eye. It formed a thick, heavy tear, and when he was allowed to blink there was dark red and brown- the movement of firelight and shadows. His head was turned the other way and his second eye cleansed, then the first one again, and one last time.

“Follow this light.” Connor shut his eyes instead, stubborn, the only act of defiance he could-

Hot- _hot! Burning hot- no! It burned, it was a brand it cut and IT BURNED IT BURNED MAKE IT STOP- NO NO-_

His mouth opened, his lungs emptied, his numb limbs tried to thrash- _no sound…!_

“Now imagine if I did not drop the wax over this shirt you wear.” The old man’s voice scolded him darkly, hands forcing him to lay down straight and flat again, heavy fingers peeling the heat off the thin fabric spread over his shivering chest. “That is merely candle wax, consider what the flame would feel like before you defy my again, Enchanter. If I hurt you too much, your Warden nature will awaken and I will have to send you back into that deep, deep sleep again, and then we will have to restart the process of waking you up. You do not want that and my employer does not want that, so let us not do that. You are a medic, Enchanter, open your eyes and follow the light so I may know your eyes are not damaged by the embrium.”

“No-” He finally choked, finally gasped. Why did this man keep calling him Enchanter? Connor was no such thing- Enchanter was a rank from the Circle, from the College- Connor was a Grey Warden and this man _knew that_ so why-?

“Open your eyes, Enchanter.” Why was this happening? Where was he? Why was this _happening_? “Now follow the light. Up… down… left… right… centre again. I will bring it close… and now take it far… Good. I am satisfied.” If it was a candle Connor couldn’t see anything but the flame, a ghostly bright spot that moved in time with his voice. “Your vision will return in a few days, perhaps sooner. I think that we no longer need the snowdrops. When your breathing has calmed we will be able to bathe and change you from those soiled clothes- that will make you feel much better. A good shave will do you some good as well, will it not? Although perhaps the Lady would not want to give you a knife. No, perhaps not, forgive my reckless comment.”

Antivan. The man was _Antivan?_

“Now, now, Enchanter! There is no cause for _this_.” A soft square of fabric touched his cheeks, one by one: he couldn’t feel the reason why until the tear-tracks cut warm paths he could feel across his cheeks. “Truly, if I were meant to kill you, I would have done so days ago. But that is not my contract in the slightest.” Contract?

Antivan.

Employer.

Contract.

_Could have killed him…_

_Crow…_

“Hmm, I do not want you breathing _so_ much better _and_ so quickly.” The Crow scolded him again, but Connor couldn’t stop it. He was with a Crow. He was being drugged and handled by an Antivan Crow. Why was he here? How had this happened? Where was his mother? Where _was he?_ “Here now, a little something to calm you down. Remember my warning, Enchanter: if you let your tainted blood interfere too much with my work, I’ll just have to start over from the beginning.”

Connor’s fear beat down the taint’s slow attempt to rise and stand in his defense. Self-preservation though compliance: it went against everything a Warden was supposed to do, but his heart faltered and his breaths were weak. He needed embrium- if he felt any colder he was going to shake until he shattered, if his lungs felt any heavier and his throat closed further he would suffocate. He needed embrium, he _needed_ …

“Drink, and feel better…” Needed that warmth, needed it, _needed it…_ “ _Drink, Enchanter… Sleep…”_

…Connor sat up slowly in the crumbled yellow light of the rotunda, the black city hovering through the broken stone windows. He formed his armour and his body and his face and his scars and his hair and his boots. He conjured his staff last and let the weapon weigh heavy and firm in his gloved hand.

But he just sat there, lost.

And he waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t fret about keeping the days straight, these chapters have already been written and sorted out so scenes always progress chronologically until Chapters 35 and 36. 
> 
> Regarding Kieran: Amaranthine belongs to the Grey Wardens, so unless his son joins the order (HAH, OVER SURANA'S DEAD BODY MAYBE) and achieves Warden Commander on his own merit, he won't become Arl of Amaranthine regardless of who his parents are. What the banns are jostling for isn't Amaranthine itself, just the chance to attach themselves to the Hero of Ferelden's family line regardless of whether Kieran is a chasind/el'vhen/magic-blooded bastard or not. Thank god this isn't Orlais.
> 
> Elf-Human marriage isn't a legally recognizable thing in Thedas until after Trespasser, so 9:44/45. This story is happening throughout 9:43/44 and will end right before Trespasser begins.


	23. Know Thine Enemy

“It is only water.” Connor wasn’t willing to believe that. When the wooden edge was pressed to his lips, he pursed them and heard the Crow sigh. “ _Enchanter_ , must you be so stubborn? Have I been untruthful in our time spent together?”

Connor did not open his mouth, but he did open his eyes. They felt dry and itched fiercely in the dark, stagnant air of the room. The chamber smelled like burning incense from a dry mixture of embrium and sandalwood meant to aid Connor’s breathing without necessarily sending him back to sleep. It made the sheets and blankets of the bed adopt a grainy texture and after several cycles of sleep and awareness he could feel the grit gathering on his skin from the constant smoke. He knew there were windows and that they were latched shut, and the roar of the burning fire meant the room should have been much warmer than his feverish skin told him. He was in a fine, proper bedroom, a long table near the bed littered with objects his blurry eyes couldn’t properly see yet, but that was where the Crow mixed his tinctures and potions.

The Crow laughed at the hateful look Connor gave him, and it ground on his nerves that the man dared to make it sound like he was responding to a well-meant joke. Connor could see very little of the Crow still, but his vision was indeed coming back. The Crow was human and wore a complicated black doublet patterned with gold and silver in designs Connor’s confused eyes couldn’t make sense of, all of it layered under the red velvet and black fur of a long sleeveless robe that draped down his body. He was a broad man, physically strong and far from feeling the age hinted at by his voice. His hands were rough but warm, and there was a deft skill behind everything he did. His face was a blur except for the thick black and grey beard that combed neat and dark across his cheeks and chin, merging with his thick hair. The embrium made it impossible for Connor to see what was in the window of his face.

“Drink so you may get the blood flowing, Enchanter, you know you can only go so long without it.” Because the constant flux of shakes and warmth made his body sweat uncontrollably, and if he didn’t take in more water than what was already in the embrium draught then his pains would increase and the tightness in his skin grow worse.

Connor hated it but he drank and it was, in fact, only water. Once he started he could not stop because the Crow would not let him and neither would his throat. He _needed_ water. Feeling it flow through him made breathing easier, brought some of the feeling back to his gut, helped even out the chills and shakes still gripping him harshly. He emptied the shallow bowl and the Crow turned away, returning with more water, and he drank that down too. The Crow checked his heart and his eyes, humming with approval as he took Connor’s arm and curled his fingers, getting him to make a fist and flex his arm, then bend his elbow and do the same thing. He wasn’t strong enough to hold his arms up on his own, but he could feel them again.

“You will be pleased to know that these circumstances were brought about at _great expense_ to my employer,” the Crow liked to talk. Maybe it was how he kept himself from going mad while playing Connor’s nurse. “Only fools tangle with the Grey Wardens, at least the ones in Ferelden. The abduction of a mage is something to take care with, but a mage _and_ Warden was worth a significant hike in price. The contract itself took many weeks to establish properly, you should be flattered.” Connor _should_ have been moments from sending a heart-stopping bolt of lightning through the arm under his neck and forcing him to sit upright, but he wasn’t quite there yet. His head swam with the change in position, and he felt the Crow fuss with something before gently easing him back down. The pillows had been moved and he was kept in a reclined position now, no longer flat on his back.

“I also have a message for you from the Lady, should you like to hear it.” Connor opened his dizzy eyes again and tried to show the hate that rolled through his chest at the mention of this _Lady_. “Very good! I almost believe you can see clearly again, Enchanter. The message should please you: she gives many a heartfelt, teary-eyed thanks to you. It seems at your mere presence here has aided a young Lady Rowan immensely- she sleeps uninterrupted, and claims the ‘ _demons’_ from her dreams are being drawn away by something. I have had no contact with the young Lady, but I will say it troubles me to hear talk of such things. Tell me, Enchanter, do you dream of such fiends?”

Connor breathed slow and deep, trying to manage the cold shivers from his body. It had been several more days, how many _more_ until something changed? He stared at the Crow and grit his sore teeth, breaths hissing past them. He breathed again, deeper, _slower_ , Maker it _hurt_ trying to speak. There was so _much_ he wanted to say, so many words jostling to be the first ones out past his waxy lips.

“While you- _talk_ -” The noises he made coughed over his tongue, “ _I_ fight. When I _fall_ -” His lungs ached, his tongue cramped, his vision was going grey. “You _’_ ll _burn_. You, then the _Lady_ , then _the rest_ …” It felt like something heavy was sliding through his lungs, cold and cloying and sinking hard to rest over his gut. Sitting up like this was hard, it hurt, it wasn’t any better than being on his back except for one single thing: he could stare directly at the Crow instead of needing the man to bend over him like his order’s namesake.

The Crow put a hand on him, unwanted, _invasive_. His fingers pressed down over Connor’s collarbone, feeling down over his chest to rest firm and controlling over his heart. He’d realized days ago that his tunic and armour were gone. He was clothed in something but in the dim light it was hard to know what- his own shirtsleeves? Linens they’d given him? He didn’t know, but it was the only thing keeping that hand off his skin.

“How do the mages sleep without encountering demons, Enchanter?” The Crow asked him in a steady, even voice. Connor wanted to bite him, to tell him to get his hands off him. “Since the Circles collapsed I have seen my fair share of Abominations. They are unpleasant, and losing you to such a fate would result in my contract ending in failure: something I will not abide by.”

“Wards.” Connor hissed, teeth locked and skin feeling colder, colder… The Crow’s hand was warm and it was sucking the heat out of the air, making him shiver like he was laying in snow, not thick quilts. “Magic wards…”

“Respectfully, Enchanter, we are still a long way from me permitting the use of your magic.”

“ _Lyrium_ ,” he coughed, breaths starting to seize. “Makes us st- _stronger_ in the Fade.”

“And what does the presence of lyrium do to a Grey Warden’s abilities, Enchanter?” The hand on his chest was checking his heart, not to establish that it _was_ beating, but to make sure it didn’t beat _harder_. The Crow didn’t want the taint to rise, and Connor didn’t know how quickly he’d regain his magic or his ability to move if he let it happen anyways. He shook his head at the question, his skin clammy, legs aching as he tried to shift his hips and failed.

“Non-reactive.” He grunted.

“Are you _lying_ to me, Enchanter?” The Crow asked, placing weight on his hand and making it much harder for Connor to breathe again- he was trying to pant but his lungs would not open up. “You know what I will do if you try to undo my work.”

“Kill me?” Connor asked. Stupid, reckless thing to say, because it caused something even worse to happen.

The hand on his chest moved up and took him by the throat. It was slow and moved deliberately, and he didn’t press his palm down to choke Connor. The Crow cupped his throat and lifted with his hand, knocking his chin up and holding painfully under his jaw. The thick, heavy breaths that rumbled down against his ear were _horrifying,_ they made his skin want to rip and peel away.

“I will put you back to sleep, Enchanter.” The Crow murmured to him, and Connor’s blurry eyes could see only the crackling hearth fire hovering across the room. “And I will keep you that way, with all of your little demons, until you are ready to behave and do as I say. But you do not want that, and my employer does not want that, so let us _not_ do that. Do _not_ _lie_ to me, Enchanter, or you will go back to _sleep_.”

“ _Lyrium-_ ” he repeated, vision shaking and lights blurring as his fear called up tears to blind and make the rest of this go away. “I- _**need** \- lyrium_…”

The hand left, the body left, and Connor would rather be frozen by the poisons in him than burned by that horrible, oppressive contact. He felt weak and limp, throat raw and mouth stale as he struggled to breathe, shoulders slumped on the pillows beneath him. There was noise, the clatter of wooden cups and bowls, the tinkle of metal and glassware. Something liquid was poured and mixed, and then a new smell cut through the dusty sandalwood smoke.

It smelled like onion and salt. It was hot enough to burn him as the soup was pressed to his mouth and Connor drank because he had to.

“Fereldans do not eat much fish, but the oils will do you some good.” The Crow said, his voice light and conversational again as something solid bumped Connor’s mouth and the bowl was tipped to slow the broth, a sign for him to take whatever it was and chew. It wasn’t a plant, it was tender and fell apart against his sore teeth: fish. But there was a bitterness under the wealth of onion and sting of garlic, a metallic grain that made Connor shut his eyes and drink. It was warm. It was food. It was embrium.

“You will fight the demons, and I will… _consider_ … the lyrium.”

The embrium opened up the thick tracts in his lungs and allowed him to _breathe_ at last… He could stop panting, his heart no longer suffering to pump and move his slow, pooling blood. His skin felt warmer, his muscles relaxed and took the pain away. His numb limbs began to float, he felt _better_ … he felt…

“ _Maker help me…”_ He felt hopeless, his feet resting on the dusty yellow tiles of the rotunda. He let his armour wrap around his body as he stood in the realm of dreams, let himself shake from fear and weep although it did no good and made no impact. He almost forgot to remember his staff and knife, to make sure his armour was fixed to his shoulder, that the weight of the silverite felt right. He touched his chest and realized now with horror that at no time while awake had he checked himself for his pendant- did he even have his ring?

“Maker, _hear me!_ ” He shouted, but his voice was swallowed by the Fade without echoing, because it wasn’t real, and he hadn’t really made a sound.

He walked and felt dizzy, stepping back to where he’d started and trying again. One foot, one stride, a short distance that shouldn’t jump or move beyond what was reasonable. He spent so much time telling himself what a _‘reasonable’_ stride was that the fear began to eat away at him: he would wake up again before moving more than half a pace from where he’d started.

Connor made himself just walk and stop losing himself in the details. He crossed the rotunda and climbed the stairs, hesitating hard at the door before he made it open. He had not left the rotunda until now: there were demons, many of them, and he’d stayed holed up in one room at one end of the Fade to wait for them. He’d spent his anger on them, his frustration, his panic, but now he was left wallowing in fear and that was an emotion he knew would make standing in one place intolerable.

But there were so _many_ demons, and that wasn’t right. They had to be congregating to find something, searching for and _wanting_ something. And if the Crow’s message to Connor really had come from his mother about Lady Rowan, then…

He entered a hallway, the same yellow glare of the rotunda colouring the walls and floor here as well. There was no ceiling, only the Fade’s twisted sky. He walked slowly, or what he hoped was slowly, and when he knew something was nearby he made himself focus on his staff- because it was his, he was holding it, and he was ready to use it.

It was a shade: inky black body, snake-like and quick. He stepped from the corner and swung his staff, moved it over his hands, in an arc over his shoulders, and his mind felt clear and open as the staff spat bolt after bolt of sparkling yellow and violet through the air. The shade howled, screeched, and flipped through the air before trying to rush him, but Connor pulled his staff down behind him, hand raised and loosed several snaking wires of lightning from his arm that ripped and tore through rubbery flesh and collapsed the beast in a haze of dark smoke.

He walked through the dredges of the beast and continued on, finding a door set in the wall and pulling his arms back for balance as he kicked it open. His foot came down and both hands swept forward with fire surging down and out in a lethal spray to catch the howling demon that lurched towards him. _‘Oh right’_ , he remembered he was meant to be holding his staff and there it was, folding through the air under his right arm so when he pulled his elbow down the back end of the weapon arced up and caught the demon under the chin, the follow-through and momentum enough for him to catch the staff and pull it horizontally in front of him, lashing out once with the head and again with the haft, lightning screaming through the air that shredded decayed grey flesh and caused another cloud of vacant emotion to sizzle down through the floor.

Searching the room showed him nothing. It was mundane and the details blurred hopelessly. Boxes- a table? The mouthless body of a fireplace. He left, confused by the room’s simple existence, and carried on.

More demons, many of them hiding- _why?_ He walked and when he heard something coming up behind him, he stood his ground, painting glyphs across the distance between them and only turning when he heard the startled shriek of his first mark grabbing and holding the spirit captive. He let his staff swing and kill it from a fair distance, then stood there and marvelled for a moment that it had felt so… easy?

“Oh.” He shouldered his staff and looked down at his hands. They looked no different than the last time he had been asleep, the creased leather of his now-missing gauntlets, the laces of his vambraces beneath them. But he closed his fingers for a moment and spread his fingers with a spark of power and the eruption of white electric energy arching between his palms gave him a surprise. “He… believed me?” Lyrium. Connor felt stronger because he’d been given _lyrium._

Unless the Crow just happened to have lyrium dust on hand then he’d had to find it, then actually prepare and give it to Connor in his sleep. How many hours had that taken, and how many more did he have left before waking up?

 _“_ Why are you hiding!” he shouted, looking up at the long corridor spreading before and behind him. Connor threw lightning down the hallway and watched it fizzle out against the stones, but it flew much further than it probably should have. “Here I am! I know you’re waiting! You’ve got a proper mage in your clutches, leave the little girl alone- she won’t do anything for you!”

He didn’t know how much time he had but it would be enough to do damage, to make a real and proper mess of things here. He would sow chaos for the creatures that had gathered over weeks and months trying to feed off a little mageling girl who didn’t know anything about her magic or how to deal with it. He would because he could, and it was just enough agency for Connor to cross his arm up high over his head, mind unfolding the sigils and symbols he wanted like a well-used map.

“ _COME FOR ME!”_ And with an invigorating howl of magic far beyond his real abilities outside the Fade, Connor _tore down the walls_. His lightning came in blasts and columns as thick as he was, they split through the imaginary stones and shattered the floor, his will surging up and taking those bricks and tiles and shards of split wood and turning them into what _he_ wanted, what _he_ demanded they be.

Grass rippled from his feet and fire launched down his arm to blast away the dream walls, carving the bend of a grassy knoll and twist of a brilliant dirt road flitting down through the Fade. He heard the screech and outrage of a terror demon, sensed it’s needle thin and contorted limbs unfurling from the grass and seeking to change it back to stone, to keep him trapped, and he slammed his staff’s end down through its head when it came ripping up towards him. Its hooked arm grabbed around his waist and threw him straight up, but Connor’s temper finally caught on something and he said _no._ He would _not_ do that.

The Fade twisted and his feet stayed on the damned ground. Fire lanced from his staff, over his hands, down the _thing’s_ body as it screeched and tried to slash him. He told the demon its claws cracked and split against his staff and where his will collided with its _he won_ and it howled. He told the demon its leg snapped clean when he hammered the thin bone and sinew with his staff and _he won_. He told the demon his dagger, wreathed in flames, severed head from body and _killed it_ and _he won._

The Despair demon told him _no,_ its lethal, boney fingers took him through the shoulder and-

 _No!_ Connor’s armour _repelled it_ , his dagger _speared_ it, his hands _burned it_ and it _died_.

“You want the girl? _You face me first!”_ He shouted, pushing both arms into the air and casting his magic like a web, spinning light and heat and fantastic power he’d never _dared_ touch in the waking world and spiralling it high over his head. He wasn’t going to wake up, he wasn’t going to kill himself with his own magic: he was going to fight _these things_ and prove he was no sobbing, weak-minded little man to be bound up in bed and fed poison all day! “You want the world through my eyes? _Face me first!_ ”

A terror demon’s claws burst from the ground at his feet, the slippery voice of sloth danced down his back, his desire for vengeance and the anger over spurned pride echoed as loudly as his magic through the dream realm.

He let the spell drop right over his head, and Connor burned every last _one of them_ to ashes…

“Th… Thank you…”

“The Arlessa seemed very shaken this morning, apparently her dear daughter dreamed of a world on fire.”

“Tell- the _Arlessa-_ that- I-” It was so _hard_ to speak… “Was pra- _cticing…_ for _her_.”

The Crow laughed, and made more inane conversation…

* * *

 

“We leave tomorrow at first light, Ansera.” Vigil’s Keep was cold with the sleet pelting her walls, the mixture of snow and rain still sitting thick and frozen in clumps against the back of Soren’s armour and tunic. His gloves felt _filled_ with cold that numbed and irritated him.

“Yes, your grace.” The dull-voiced tranquil stated, and with a dismissal he peeled away down a different corridor as Soren and Zevran marched forward, frozen and fed up from the miserable weather clouding the evening. Dinah kept stopping to shake herself off in the corridor, then came bounding back up to walk next to him.

“Garevel said there first was a letter for Velanna from Denerim,” Zevran reported to him, his blonde hair slicked down and his hands busy wringing water from the black scarf that had tried to protect his throat and neck from the storm. “But there is another from the King waiting in your office.”

“What about Bouclier?”

“She said they would find him, Soren- are you certain you did not want me to part from you on the road?” Soren ran his tongue over his teeth for a moment, considering it heavily as the mabari nuzzled his hand with her cold muzzle.

“We’re soaked and frozen through. You’d need a fresh horse to reach Denerim before I will.” Sleeping on the road in a storm like this was doable, but miserable, and Soren wanted information before he started sending people scampering off with no way to call them back. “How many contacts do you have here at the Vigil?”

“One, but I have not seen her yet.” His friend admitted, and then in a lower voice: “It concerns me.”

“Dry yourself and then find her.” Soren did _not_ mention that keeping Crows out of Amaranthine was supposed to be Zevran’s favourite pass-times.

“As if I would neglect to do so.” There was a dismissive huff to those words and Soren bit down on the edge of his tongue for a moment.

“It was not my place, Zevran.”

“Apology accepted,” The words rolled easily off the assassin’s tongue. “Don’t worry, I know how cranky you get in the cold.”

“And when my Wardens are missing,” Soren finished. They came to the doors to his apartments and he shouldered one of them open where the latch had been left ajar. Zevran was right behind him, and Mistress Felsi was stubbornly seeing to something at the dining table when she looked up at them. The hearth was filled with a roaring fire but the apartments were cold- a discouraging thing. Kieran and Tagar would be freezing and Dinah barked loudly and hurried to the fire to shake herself off again.

“Warden Commander,” Oghren’s wife said stiffly, a platter on one of her hands and the other resting on her hip. Soren paused and regarded the table, counting far too many metal domes.

“Am I expecting dinner company, Felsi?” He asked, letting his staff rest against one of the chairs as he approached. There were already three meals laid down as he pulled his gloves off, and the dwarven woman was irritated as she scooped up one of them and replaced it with the one in her hand. He left his helmet on the back of one of the chairs, running a hand through his sweat-and-rain damped hair.

“That boy,” she huffed, sort-of answering him. “-hasn’t eaten all day. You talk some sense into him before you leave again, Commander.” Soren lifted one of the cold platters and found a sadly neglected breakfast of oatmeal. An untouched pot of milk, bowl of fruit, and tin of honey had him surprised to say the least. He plucked the fruit off the plate and popped one of the cherries into his mouth, curious about the waste.

The other platter Felsi took was a spread of cold meats and cheese with bread and sweet corn- why would Kieran ignore that? Maker, the last thing Soren needed tonight was his son to run a fever…

“I’ll deal with him, thank you.” He said, watching as the old meals were taken away and three dinners set down- one for himself, Kieran, and- “Zevran, come eat while it’s still warm.”

“Why is it so cold in here?” His friend asked, and Felsi huffed loudly again. “No really, why?”

“Touch the stones: that fire’s been burning for hours.” Zevran did as she said, bemused when the mantle felt warm. Dinah had her rump on the hearthstones to show how toasty and nice it must have felt, but the mabari stopped panting with a subtle whine, then barked again with her ears high.

“I’ll have one of the servants run your baths as soon as I get back down there.” Felsi stated, ignoring the dog when Dinah barked again, standing up.

Soren thanked her and left the bowl of fruit on the table again after palming a few more pieces, a slice of apple was sweet in his mouth as he crossed the salon and opened the northern door leading further inside. He was run up against by Dinah who decided to bark _again_ \- looking for Tagar? It was unlike him not to answer the younger dog.

“I don’t like it when she does that,” Zevran said from behind him, the three of them entering the short hallway that included Soren and Morrigan’s chamber at the very end, Kieran’s bedroom, a private bath, and Zevran’s private room before Morrigan’s workshop at the other end. That last door was still standing with Soren’s magic radiating over the wood to keep it locked. “Where is he? Ostagar!” Zevran gave a whistle and there was no reply.

“Kieran?” Maybe he simply wasn’t up here, he could have spent the day with Mistress Delilah’s family playing games with Thomas and Natalie and keeping the old war hound busy. He was certainly somewhere close by because Soren squeezed his cold fingers together and felt the woven iron ring around his finger hum with a soft spark of magic. His was one of three and the second was too far over the Waking Sea for him to feel properly: Morrigan was in Tevinter, or the Anderfels, or somewhere in that far-flung direction. Kieran was here, in the Vigil.

Soren tried his son’s door and it opened, but he immediately swore at the rush of cold air sucking the warmth away.

“Kieran!” He repeated in frustration, marching into the room with an annoyed rumble in his own voice. The window was wide open in the storm; the rugs _soaked_ and fireplace wet with rain and slush. It must have been fine weather earlier in the day and he hadn’t come back to _close_ the windows after dancing his way down the ramparts and rooves like a mad-child. Soren took one window and then the other, shutting them tight and flipping the latch to keep the rain and wind outside where it belonged. “Maker’s _breath_ even his bed!” Soaked. Completely soaked- in the middle of winter!

“ _Sobrino_ , answer your father!” Zevran’s voice called, checking the bath before both of them heard Dinah’s barking give way to sudden, frantic yelping. Soren told himself to keep his irritation in check because that his son was obviously hiding, or playing a game, or had lost track of himself today and was eating a hot dinner with Nathaniel’s niece and nephew.

Those reasons didn’t stop him from going very quickly to his mabari where Dinah was keening desperately at his bedroom door, claws ripping at the bottom of the door and the dark tiles. Soren’s hands reached quickly for his throat, for the chain holding the key to his and Morrigan’s bedroom, but his eyes did not miss the scratches at the lock.

“Tell me you gave him your old set of picks,” he said with a deep breath, telling himself this was not a bad situation.

“I did.” _Good_. If he was ill and wanted to sleep someplace safe, then- then that would explain why the door was _not_ locked when it should have been. He pushed the door open but Dinah barged through ahead of him, the mabari barking frantically and reaching a piercing shriek that hurt, her heavy body shaking and voice breaking in a fever-pitch that made both of them shout for her to- to…

N-

“Maker’s Mercy-” The breath left Zevran’s lips and Soren staggered, physically, he lost his balance and his arm caught the door, his friend at his side and grabbing him before he could slip.

The floor was slick with blood. The air stank with it.

Old and rancid, just like the flesh of the dead mabari riddled with thick black rents in his hide. Pain speared through the middle of Soren’s chest, faint and far-away memories of a southern road and the scattered beat of paws scampering through the early winter grass. The eager, vicious face of a war-hound spared from death by virtue of a white and blood-red flower, presenting itself at his feet with an adoration that had never wavered.

“Kieran-” Dinah’s paws smacked the cold blood, bouncing at her sire with less and less force, barks reduced to whines that broke into a deep, mourning howl. “ _Kieran!_ ”

There was blood and there were footprints and there was a long, bloody drag of something too heavy to carry- it went to the window that was open and let the wind howl and scream across the large room.

_“KIERAN!”_

Soren felt his hands tearing at the bed, looking for his son. He flung his arm at the armoire to blast the doors open, looking for his son. He tore down the curtains, he grabbed with both hands and blew cold air down the cold floo to scatter ash and make sure, make _absolutely sure_ , he was not hiding. He was not here. His son was gone.

 _“FIND HIM!_ ” His screaming brought knights charging through the apartments, swords drawn to defend him because they thought _he_ was the one in danger! “ _Find them! **Kill** them! Bring him **back**!”_ The panic was choking him, the anger blown down by _fear, complete, immobilizing fear._

Dinah could only track Kieran to the window and back before she howled and keened with her own panic. Garavel came running with his sword and shield when the Vigil’s alarm bell began to toll, her gates rattling shut across each cascading level.

“ _Every house! Every room!”_ He ordered, blind with panic as the words and fire spilled out of him, his hands wrapped in white flames _desperate_ for use. _“Anyone_ who denies the order gets the sword! _FIND MY SON!_ ” Captain Renth came to his side and vanished, taking the Silver Order through the Vigil like a fine comb. Any door that didn’t open, she broke down. Any freeman who resisted was arrested, any signs of fresh blood, a dead body, or a missing child would see Soren personally set the house on _fire_ with all occupants _still inside_.

“Brother.” Zevran found his missing contact: dead, with her eyes gouged out and wrists tied to his bed, black crow feathers tucked between her breasts. The word ‘ _sloppy’_ had been carved onto both of her forearms. A chewed, ripped-off human hand was found in Tagar’s limp jaws: the crow-faced ring on one mutilated finger was enough to make the Vigil’s throne room floor _crack_ from the fire he summoned across the stones.

He was still here. He was still here. His ring was still here: _Kieran was still inside Vigil’s Keep._ Zevran left and Soren tore off his own ring, catching it between his hands in a web of white hot magic that made the ring and its enchantments stress and bend. He was still here, Soren would find him. His son was still here and _he was going to **find** him!_

Not in the Anderfels. Not in Tevinter. Not in Nevarra. Not across the Waking Sea. His. Son. Was. _Here._

So imagine the sounds that were made, when that ring was not found on Kieran’s finger.

But in a fold of paper,

Sitting in the pocket,

Of an Antivan Crow,

In Silver Order armour.

Who screamed, and screamed, and _screamed._

And no, he wouldn’t give up his Masters,

Or where his friends had gone,

Because he was Antivan,

Well trained, and conditioned.

But that didn’t stop the Archmage,

Who made him scream, and scream, _and scream…_


	24. Guidance

Cold wind and sleet slowed their progress from Denerim back to the Vigil, but the greatest upset to Carver Hawke was the far away toll of the Vigil’s alarm bells ringing through the dark night. He and Evie had pushed forward through the storm, desperate to reach home and warmth and the rest of the order, but the journey had still dragged and dragged and _dragged_ through the foul weather.

With the alarm bell tolling overhead in the storm they found the gates _locked_ and the guardsmen unwilling to negotiate. Just another _fucking thing_ going wrong in their lives.

“ _Warden Hawke!_ ” He shouted, beating his fist against the doors. There was not little servant’s pop-up door down here, this was a fortress built for war and she had no seams in her walls, no break in her gates. It was the ten-foot-tall opening or nothing, and Connor shouted through the wind at the man in silverite plate leaning over the battlement. “ _WARDEN CARVER FUCKING **HAWKE!** Treachery against the Wardens in Denerim! The Warden Commander **will** let us in!”_

It took an hour. It took a freezing, drenching, midnight _hour_ before the gates finally blasted and groaned- and they hardly opened at all before seizing, forcing the two Wardens and their horses to _squeeze_ through before the gates hammered shut again. The rain and sleet were coming down in wet curtains, hail pelting their armour and hammering the Vigil’s rooftops. The bell had stopped ringing but there were people about and moving: soldiers, Wardens, denizens of the Vigil.

“Oghren!” The only Warden it could have been in that style armour and standing so close at hand by the gates. “What’s going on?”

“Where in the sodding hells are Howe and Guerrin, Hawke!” Was the constable’s welcome under the storm. “Did either of you see anyone going East on the road here tonight?”

“In weather like _this_?” Carver shouted, water sloshing through his armour.

“ _Answer me, damn it, Carver!”_ Oghren bellowed back at him, and the use of his name shocked Carver out of an angry reply.

“ _See_ anyone? No.” Evie stepped in to say, voice raised over the sheets of rain and hail. “But we’ve been riding hard and the weather is foul, anyone who did not want to be seen could have easily hidden as we passed.” Maker’s Mercy, they hadn’t been _looking…_ “Constable, what’s happened?”

“Commander’s son’s been taken by Crows.” Carver started laughing, or yelling, he couldn’t hear a difference in the rain pelting his helmet. “Blood everywhere- they killed old Tagar but not before he took a massive bite out of one and ripped his sodding hand off! Commander caught another one hiding in the Silver Order, he should be _dead_ by now.”

Oghren took them quickly up through the Vigil to her main gate. Every home and building they passed had a light burning inside, voices and nervous shadows trembling at windows. Oghren explained the search that had ripped through every _single_ dwelling in the Fortress’ sight: every barn, every closet, every cellar and attic. He didn’t know if anyone had been stupid enough on principle to try and keep the militia and Wardens from their search, but this was not something Surana was going to compromise on.

They entered the main belly of the keep and found a mad court in session. Voices were rolling over one another like a boiling cauldron, soldiers and Wardens mingled on the throne room floor and carrying on in angry, aggressive ways: accusing fingers, shoves, and jabs, the insults _flying_. Carver had never seen this kind of chaos in almost five years at Vigil’s Keep, shocked and slack-jawed at the edge of the rioting noise. There was the foul _stink_ of burning flesh that grew stronger the further through the throne room they went, and finally they reached an open ring right at the edge of Surana’s throne where a violent black char had been piled on the floor: corroded metal and cinders mixed with shards of bone and a black skull.

The Commander was as mad as his court, gauntlets and helmet missing, staff spitting violent red light over his head where he was holding it in one white-knuckle fist. His fair hair looked dirty from the road, thin tangles that fell around his face and a furious colicky red staining his ears and face, his eyes swarming with the blue light from the taint and his magic mixing in a volatile cocktail. At his feet his mabari’s ears were high and alert, hackles raised up and eyes white and wild with aggression. She was barking with yellow fangs flashing the air, claws extending and scratching at the floor as she snapped at Garevel’s legs, reinforcing what her master was saying.

“ _Seal the port!_ ” The Archmage bellowed. “They will not escape- raise the harbour chain! Not one ship in or out of Amaranthine habour until I have him back!”

“Your grace that will _cripple_ trade for the Arling!” the Seneschal was babbling, face glistening with sweat and feet edging him further and further back from the angry hound. “All they will have to do is wait until we’ve put ourselves in a position where trade _must_ flow, and sneak out then!”

“ _Search the city!”_

“The city and the fortress are not the same _thing_ , my lord!” The Seneschal cried. “Bann Talbind will be over-thrown if you force this through! The city will riot, you-”

“ _Let them riot and then put it **down!**_ ” Carver felt his nerves freeze, like he could feel his trust begin to tense and fracture. He didn’t know this person, and Carver certainly hadn’t followed him before.

But right now Carver was following Oghren, and the dwarf was throwing his shoulders side to side as he stomped across the black cinders, crushed the skull under one silverite boot, and marched up past the snarling mabari like it was a harmless nug.

“Sit down.” The dwarf grunted, and Surana _looked_ at him with such violence that Carver found himself asking who he would jump to aid if it erupted into a fight. “I’ve followed your flame-spitting ass through too much shit to watch you go down like this! Sit the fuck down, Soren!”

“You will _not_ speak to me like-”

“ _Like you’ve lost your sodding mind!?_ ” The Constable shouted, “Sit down! No Crow is gonna turn you into some Surfacer’s version of Bhelen in one night, not right in front of me!”

“I’m not-”

“Power-mad! Panicked!” Oghren bellowed right over the Warden Commander and he did not stop, his rampaging words stampeding over the noise from other voices in the hall, gathering attention like heat in a thundercloud. “Letting whoever’s got their hands on your boy win just the way _they wanted to!”_ And that, finally, seemed to cause a break in the raging taint pouring through the Commander’s eyes. It didn’t make the blue light dim, but it made him stop, just stop for a moment, and listen.

 _“_ You think they didn’t plan this!?” Oghren shouted at him. “You, Mister _Too-Sodding-Smart-For-Denerim,_ can’t see hear the criers tomorrow morning? ‘ _Elven Lord loses mind, burns down Keep and sacks own city’!_? If you strangle your Arling and let your own men kill each other, then you’ll have Kieran dropped off on the burnt-out door with a thank-you note stuck to the knife in his back! By the Ancestors, Soren, your house really will fall on its founder if you don’t stop and demand to know what these stone-blind fools want from you! And this! _This is what they want!_ ”

Oghren’s was not a voice of _reason_ , it was one of _strategy_. Vigil’s Keep was under attack and her constable was ready to stand between her Commander and the disastrous mistakes that would blow up their own barracks and break the supply chain before they even left the gate. He didn’t have to know politics if he knew war, because without Surana to lead them Amaranthine would go _nowhere_ …

“They took your son!” Carver heard himself say, because for the first time in over a week there was something weighing in his heart and spinning through his thoughts that wasn’t Ser Perth or Connor. “They made this personal! It’s not an attack on the Grey Wardens or Amaranthine, it’s directed at you and no one else!” Connor was a mage, he was a Grey Warden, he was a grown man and he was kin to the people who’d stolen him away. Kieran was none of those things and even if it made Carver’s heart shake and split wide open, he had to at least _acknowledge_ the wound that would kill his Commander if left to bleed unchecked.

“Warden Howe was a warning!” Evie spoke up next to him, and then she approached Surana’s throne where the Warden Commander was standing with his shoulders hanging low, the grip on his staff part of what was keeping him up. The taint was fading from his wide eyes, but he looked up when Evie drew out the crow dagger from Denerim, holding it by the blade and offering the hilt to her Commander as she sank to one knee. Surana took the dagger, holding it in one of his blemished hands and staring at the crow skull at the pommel. “A statement that the Crows would kill if interfered with, but only if they had to. There is no way one attack triggered the other from so far away, they were planned and executed only days apart.”

“My Lord, the Silver Order stands before you in disgrace!” Captain Renth stepped forward to say, and from next to Carver she also took a knee, a fist against her chest. “Our oaths are to protect Amaranthine and her people and tonight we failed: he was hiding amongst us and we didn’t even know. With your blessing and by your command, Arl Soren Surana of Amaranthine, I will see the Order cleansed.”

The Warden Commander slowly moved back and sank down on to his throne. He rarely sat in it, the wood was high and thick and tended to make him look smaller than was proper. But he filled the throne tonight with age and anger and a weight Carver had seen on his sister Marian’s shoulders from time to time, but ever as great as this. The taint was retreating and the crimson head of his staff was calming down, the dragger that had almost killed Nathaniel digging its point into the arm of the throne as its head looked the Commander dead in his exhausted eyes.

“So be it,” he uttered, words almost failing to carry past his lips, but the hall was quiet now and it was enough. “Search the Silver Order, Captain, though I doubt you will find any others.”

“By your command, your grace.” With a loud cry and summons from the Captain, she stood. The Silver Order abandoned the hall and followed her away, several of them offering a bow and pledge to their Arl before leaving.

“Wardens! Front and centre!” Oghren bellowed as the hall began to empty, servants escaping and Carver recognized now that there were family members and other people he would hesitate to call servants of the Vigil. Nathaniel’s brother-in-law, a proud tradesman with a thick blond beard and dripping cape and hood remained stalwart at the edge of the hall, his wife and children absent but his sister-in-law Velanna clutching a twisted ironbark staff in her hands where she was standing next to him. Velanna kept tilting her head to speak to the hooded formari hovering next to her, Connor’s assistant ghostly and quiet in his embroidered robe.

“Your grace,” Garevel’s voice fluttered between the sound of boots and armour as Carver found Sigrun at his side and Evie still to his right. Hestel and Clyde and the other Wardens were gathering, but there were too few of them. Just in general, after the crowded Warden halls of Ostwick and the noise and activity of the Orlesians’ presence, there were _too few_ Fereldan Grey Wardens. “ _Your grace,_ ”

“Seneschal.” Surana acknowledged him, his gaze still resting on the dagger and his voice slowly mellowing back down to its usual deep sound.

“Your command to close the harbour…”

“Disregard it,” he ordered in that same quiet way. Garevel’s relief came with closed eyes and a steady breath.

“Hawke, where are Hassick and Athras?” Oghren demanded, taking over for Surana who may have been listening, but seemed overwhelmed.

“They’ve been sent to Redcliffe to look for any signs of Connor,” he reported, causing a stir through the men and women around him and bringing Surana’s eyes up from the dagger. “Nathaniel is still recovering in Denerim, but he’s at the Commander’s estate and was doing better before we left.”

“From the beginning,” Surana said, watching the two of them with cloudy eyes from his throne behind Oghren.

They explained, from the beginning, exactly what had happened. Connor’s disownment, the tavern, Ser Perth, the wine, their search and the ambush. Carver let Evie speak for both of them because she had been in command since it started.

“So did the Blighters take the mage to distract from the boy, or the boy to distract from the mage?” Oghren growled and then spat, making sure it landed in the blackened remains of the dead Crow still marring the floor between the Wardens and their Commander.

“Connor said he knew something,” Carver spoke out again. “Some kind of secret, something his family didn’t want getting out- but that he had to send forward to you, Commander.”

“Could it have been this?” Sigrun asked, “That his family was working with Crows- _if_ they’re the ones who did the hiring?”

“On my life and his honour, do you really think he’d be capable of that?” Carver said, chest tight and trying not to let himself speak harshly. “To just sit on something like _that_ , trust it to go in a little letter while the rest of us ate and drank a nice meal?”

“I- No, you’re right.” She amended. “I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me.” It probably didn’t warrant an apology but Carver could feel the nerves shaking him again and the tightness was creeping up his throat. He looked away from her and back up at the Commander and Oghren.

“Seneschal,” Surana spoke, nothing about him had moved: one hand on his staff keeping it upright next to him, the other on the hilt of the Crow dagger with its point biting into the arm of his throne. “The letter from His Majesty…”

“I have it with me, your grace.” Garevel began feeling through his pockets until he found it, but when he tried to hand the letter to Surana the Commander told him to simply read it out. “I… His Highness is often very frank, my lord.”

“Read it.” Surana repeated, and it was clear he would not say it a third time. Garevel did as instructed, with significant _modifications_ for the benefit of the listening Wardens. Given the number of times the Seneschal balked or stumbled before inserting a politeness that sounded out of place against King Alistair’s cadence, he was working around the better part of every line to remove the insults, and outright swearing.

Ultimately what they got was this: His Majesty knew that Warden Connor had fought with and been formally renounced by his family and he wanted the issue resolved immediately. He was under the impression that Connor had returned to Vigil’s Keep against His Highness’s orders and was angry with his ‘ _petulant’_ attitude. The Warden Commander was to journey to Denerim to see things put right between House Guerrin and their estranged son, and Surana was also to uphold his word to help House Guerrin’s ill daughter fight off her life-threatening illness. When the Wardens arrived in Denerim they were to meet with the King and work with Lady Rowan’s family to either have her brought to Denerim, or have Surana ride to Redcliffe.

The Warden Commander and his hall were quiet as Garevel finished his awkward reading. Carver found too many things wrong with the letter, the tone, and the demands to know what to focus on. He was freezing cold, soaked to the bone, hungry, exhausted, and emotionally strung out. The only person he was willing to take as his equal in misery was Evie next to him. The only person who out did either of them was Surana himself. Maker, he looked _ancient…_

Surana remained immobile atop his throne, eyes returned to the Crow skull fixed to the dagger he was holding. The taint had calmed again and left deep dark marks under his eyes, his skin ashen and shoulders stooped. He held the hall in silence, and when he found his voice again it was not with the words Carver wanted to hear.

“Wardens, you will return to the hall at first light. Dismissed.” No! No, he couldn’t send them away! They were half-way through the night already and nothing had come of it! They couldn’t just go to _bed!_

“Commander- that’s not enough!” Surana didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t take his eyes off that damned _dagger!_ “Sir-!”

“What in the Ancestor’s name do you expect us to do, Hawke?” Oghren growled, still standing between the throne and the rest of them. “It’s the middle of the sodding night, none of us have had a decent meal, a decent rest, a moment’s sodding peace in days! Off with you, be back at dawn.”

“The King is _wrong!_ ” Carver shouted, “We were there, we-”

“Carver,” Evie took his arm, their armour scraping when he tried to shake her off.

“No-”

“ _Carver-_ ” No! It wasn’t enough! Two people were missing and they were being dismissed! The Commander’s _own son-_

“Warden Hawke,” Surana’s grave voice uttered from the throne. “Return at dawn.”

* * *

 

Hours later, Soren was still awake. His Wardens had been dismissed- not all of them easily, but they’d left in the end. Garevel he had sent away. Captain Renth he would not see again before daybreak.

He’d gouged a sizeable hole in the arm of his throne. The damage didn’t bother him. Too many other things were already in motion for a bit of chipped wood to make the list. The black eyes of the bird skull carved into the end of the dagger mocked him. The hard thunk of the dagger’s point biting the wood was dull and distracting.

Vigil’s Keep was quiet and she was cold. The throne-room’s fires had burned down to glowing embers, its doors barred to keep servants away. Zevran, who was not a servant, had departed hours ago.

His right hand rested on the arm of his throne, staff eased back to lean with its bloodstone head resting over his. Under the shadow of his palm were two braided iron rings resting atop a slip of paper. He let one of his scarred fingertips touch the smaller ring, the important one.

There was a subtle glow over his shoulders. Faint. Far away. Separated from this world by the delicate weave of the Veil. The light was potent enough to murmur against the edges of his thoughts and no more, never any more.

_‘The question I bring you will always be the same: what is your duty?’_

His Wardens. His Country. His Son. All of them, indistinguishable from the others.

‘ _Where does the highest duty lie?’_

His Country. His Son. His Wardens. All of them, indistinguishable from the others.

_‘The first, the heart, the most?’_

His Son. His Wardens. His Country. All of them, indistin… no… not true.

_‘Wherefore does conflict rise if the obligation is clear?’_

Because to chase Kieran, to attack the hands holding the knives, to kill the snake before sucking out the poison, would endanger the second responsibility and outright defy the third.

_‘You are a warlord: your duty is to war.’_

He was a commander of men, a safeguard against Blight. House Guerrin were not Darkspawn.

_‘Your Wardens and Your Son face the same foe. You are a Warlord, a shield against the blade.’_

Was a Spirit of Duty truly telling him that disgrace against his sworn king and violence towards his fellow lords was somehow _not_ a conflict against its own nature?

_‘I am as I am and you are as you are. I remain as I always shall be, and you are mortal: you change and you decide. So long as the obligations which guide you are honour-bound to who it is you are, so shall a Spirit of Duty lend its aid in righteous battle.’_

The spirit left him to consider its words, and he pried the dagger from the throne again just to let it thunk back down, chipping the wood a little more. He felt no better, no straighter on his path. Warm food, dry clothes, and a few hours sleep would have changed that but he couldn’t justify it. Couldn’t bear to make himself seek out creature comforts when everything over his head and under his feet was ready to topple and shatter.

And where would he have gone? Certainly not back to blood-stained rooms. No ward would keep his dreams safe from the memory of one small bloody footprint distinct amongst the boots and scuffles of grown men.

But here he was, thinking of himself at a time like this. The knife rose and thunked against the wood. It bit deep. It distracted him.

Distracted him from the subtle glow of magic that brushed against the two iron rings under his domed palm.

Thunk went the knife again, in the dark.

It only took minutes. His eyes were fixed down the corroded breastplate still resting in its disgusting pile of ash on the floor. He heard the wingbeats, felt the rush of magic disturb the current of his magic as it circled and spun in his chest, tugging against his ribs like they were branches dipped in a steady river. Her black boots stepped across the ash slowly, the silence and the solitude enough to give her pause, to make her stop and see what little the room could tell her.

Her son was not in the room, there really wasn’t anything else Morrigan would have to recognize.

“There is _blood_ in my bedchamber,” her low, rich voice stated, breaking the silence like a hammer through ice. In the darkness he could hardly see her face, but sight wasn’t necessary.

He let the dagger bite the throne again and the quiet froze back up.

“Where is Zevran?”

“On the road to Denerim.” He uttered, his first words in hours. “They hired Crows.”

 _‘You are the Arl, I am your shadow.’_ He’d said, a lethal hiss by his shoulder as a Crow operative writhed and began to smoke under a web of furious magic. _‘Wherever you cast me, no enemy will ever escape. They took my nephew and I will take their lives.’_ Soren had not seen him leave, did not expect to hear of him again until Kieran was returned or every last one of his killers brought down.

“And you did not go with him.” Her voice was hard and sharp, the keen edge of anger tempered with unspoken hysteria. He lifted his right palm away from the paper and the two iron rings, curling his fingers and bending his arm to let it rest and reveal the items. Morrigan mounted the steps to the throne in three fast steps and snatched all three away, turning from him and dropping back down the steps. Flickering blue magefire enrobed her fingers and floated free to light the air as she saw the two rings: one original, and one a graft from the other and the third ring twisted around her own finger. The page bore only one line of scrawling text:

 _Your house will crumble on its founder_.

“There is no ransom,” and no name, no sigil, no mark at all. It was a taunt meant to be left where he would find it with his son’s ring as proof of the threat. Soren could doubt that the Crows had known _what_ the ring was, but something in him ached to the point of splintering like raw bone when he called them all lucky that there had been no finger to go with it. The dagger hit the throne again. “They did not kill him, or else you would be with his body- you would not _dare_ hide from-”

“It is _blackmail_ , Morrigan.”

“ _I know that!_ ” She screamed, spinning to face him with malevolent red flames coursing down her arm and flying over his head to burst and roll down the face of the throne. They did not touch him, they came close, but the witch who threw them was better than that. She stormed back up in front of him and flung something down at his lap. “ _Put it back on!_ ” It was his ring.

He saw it sitting there against the silverite folds of his tunic, barely able to focus on the black iron in the dark, and then shook his head. She answered him with another scream, throwing her hands down with violent green magic twisting over her arms.

“Do not be like this!” She shouted, then took him with both hands by the collar of his armour. He stood to keep her from forcing him up, his body sore from the cold and stress but still able to stand. His eyes were closed and she shook him, hard. “Your schemes brought this on him! I _trusted_ you!”

“There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already told myse-” Her arms crossed over his back and pulled him to her.

The mother of his child was many things. Aggressive, driven, powerful, stately, vicious, possessive, _passionate_ \- but something that almost never came to mind around her was _kind_. Soren expected outbursts of magic, of screaming and accusations. He was ready to be slapped or scratched by his mistress’s fury trying to mask her fear, to have her shove him away or her body to simply evaporate in a cloud of old magic and carry her off in search of her son. To be embraced by her had not crossed his mind, and if it had then he’d dismissed it.

But she held him, tightly, her face down against his and her arms tangled around him, the shock of her warmth leaving him stunned before he reached out for her. The cloak wrapped around her shoulders was damp when he turned his face against it, looking for her skin and her warmth and when he found it he breathed her in. She was pulling one hand through his hair, her breaths shallow against him as her voice carried quiet words between them.

“When did they take him?”

“This morning. I was not here,” he whispered back, eyes closed and his hands running firm up and down her back.

“How many?”

“Two are dead but I don’t know how many more.”

“From where?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about you?”

“ _I don’t know_ …” Morrigan’s arms tightened, squeezing him hard as the words gasped from his lungs. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, he did not _know_ and- no. _No._ He let go of her, he put his hands on the arms twisted around him and tried to pull her off. “Enough, Morrigan.”

“Be still,” she hissed, and ire began to harden in his gut.

“Let go,”

“No.”

“Your job is not to _comfort_ me, woman.” Let go, _let go_. He was not going to take her _pity_ he was not going to accept false absolution for something that was his _fault_. “I’ve told you all I know, now stop wasting _time_.”

“Do not presume to order me about like one of your _serfs,_ Warden.” He did not want _kindness,_ he would not tolerate _coddling_ , he did not want the witch who rode on a dragon’s wings to bring herself down and tuck him in to bed at the end of a cold night. Her hands tried to scratch and grapple with his, and if he could rile her temper then he could make her _leave_ and go _search for her boy_. “I will act as _I see fit_ and until _you_ are in a state to make a difference in these matters, I will not let you banish me so easily!”

“What difference!” He shouted, finally separated from her. “Raise an army just to have it picked apart across the Bannorn, marching to a fortress that has never fallen to an army in a thousand years? Howl outside Redcliffe’s walls for my warden and my son while my King and his Arls fire arrows at my back! Because I have no proof, Morrigan! I have nothing to show the Landsmeet!”

“A son for a son, is that it? You know exactly who did this!” She screeched back at him.

“I can’t prove it! I can’t prove _anything!_ ”

“So you sit here alone, sobbing in the dark, and expect the answers will come to you?” It was not her temper that was building up, it was _his_ pride that recoiled. “This is not your demon-infested tower, Soren! This isn’t a hundred Darkspawn throwing themselves in the way of your magic or your blade! Some fool paid murderers to take _our_ son away and you _cannot_ sit silently by and refuse to play their twisted game!”

“And give them the _satisfaction-_ ”

“ _Give me my son back!”_ She howled over him. “I felt your magic dousing through the rings to find him and I left _everything_ to come back through the eluvian and answer you- and all I find is this! You standing here shaking like a dog and too scared to bite back at the thieves responsible!”

“I _don’t know_ what to do…”

“Put your ring back on!” She demanded, voice tearing through the darkness. “You start with that! You start by remembering how that slippery, sniveling, backstabbing mageling _brat_ conscripted to the Grey Wardens took _one night_ to rally himself before cutting down the filth that rippled through his precious Circle tower! You step away from the _lie_ of this proper and polite Fereldan Lord, and remember the Grey Warden who brought four armies to bear against the Archdemon! You enemies are old men who think you as toothless and frail as they are- prove them wrong! What _won’t_ you do to take back what’s yours, Warden? What _King_ between creation and abyss will hold you from your rights?”

She continued and carried on, her words cutting and pulling and scratching as she spoke. Morrigan flung away the shadows like a personal annoyance, her hands swiping with light until Soren brought a palm up and summoned a bright flame in one of the cold hearths. She scolded him for the useless act but he just repeated it over the stones on the other side of the hall, and when her insults and challenges began to slow because he wasn’t listening, his mistress misunderstood the reason he took a knee before her.

 _“Get up!_ ” Her fingers hooked at the buckle of his tunic’s high collar, and he grunted when she tried to pull him up like a hound.

“With what is mine,” he rebuked, fingers scraping the floor so when he stood his fallen ring was in his hand again. She snatched it from him with a furious word and grabbed his hand, rude and rough as she jammed the woven iron band down over his knuckle to rest against the bright red patch of skin wrapped around the base of his finger. With her so distracted it was easy to take the back of her neck against his free hand and pull her down into a kiss. She shoved him away, but a quiet beat and painful look passed between them before she took his face in both hands and kissed him. They were both calmer when it parted, faces close and her hands brushing through his hair again, his lips whispering against hers.

“There is a high dragon awakening in the Hinterlands,” he said softly. “The snow is deep and cold but her breath blackens the air. She does not burn the villages or chase the mountain folk from their homes because their children are not to blame for the fate of hers’. She is beautiful and wise, indigo scales and violet hide, with wings black as night and eyes golden as the moon.” And both of those eyes were looking at him now, highlighted by the deep shadows of the make-up brushed across them and letting the ethereal colour shine in the firelight. “She does not attack Redcliffe or it’s castle, but she flies so close the Arlessa’s windows rattle, the wind off her back ripping tiles from the fortress towers like leaves stripped off branches. She roars through the night like a demon and brings the knights charging from the gates to find her, but when she rounds the mountain she vanishes with only ravens and wolves to carry her secret.”

“And why does this dragon carry on so boldly, but without burning the villagers to ash?” Morrigan asked him,

“Because her presence alarms the people.” He answered, nudging his face up against hers so she could close her eyes and hear him. “While no Arl can march an army across the Bannorn to challenge his rival, no King can stop the Commander of the Grey from bringing fifty Grey Wardens to defend his Championship.”

“My Lord does not _have_ fifty Grey Wardens,” she murmured, brushing her thumb down his cheek. “Not unless Soldier’s Peak-”

“Not unless I say so,” he interrupted. “Today? No. But by tomorrow…”

“And you can take the impregnable castle Redcliffe with only fifty men, my love?” How he enjoyed the way her lips turned into a dark smile for him now, his hands at rest across her waist.

“My dearest and most desired Lady Morrigan,” he tugged her closer to him, head tilted back to keep their lips from separating too much. “I did it with three…”

* * *

 

Genevieve recognized the man, calm and alert and in-control of his court, who stood and spoke to them at dawn. He addressed his Grey Wardens with confidence, fielded their questions with tact, and commanded them with simple, direct orders. He was sleepless, yes, unwashed, of course, but he was their Warden Commander and he was the one every last Warden in the hall knew and respected. The mad elf from last night was banished from the throne room and his restoration gave a deep and healing boost to morale.

“I have already taken the initiative and sent Warden Sigrun with a company of three Silver Order militiamen to the Knotwood Hills, the closest available entrance into the Deep Roads.” But that did not stop his words, calmly spoken as he strode back and forth across his dais, bloodstone staff in hand, from confusing them at times. “I expect her to return by tomorrow evening bearing enough Darkspawn blood to do what each of you, my seneschal, my captains, my King, and even my _wife_ , have demanded for far too long. Ferelden needs more Grey Wardens, because I cannot keep my men and women safe from political meddling when a company of four of you are a fifth of the Order. The forges are at work this morning, and when we have the means to perform the Joining, it will be done.” He had been busy during the night…

“How many, Commander?” It sounded like Hestel’s voice.

“As many as are willing,” he told them, handling the question lightly and with almost a fondness. “As many as have journeyed and fought and served Amaranthine loyally and well, eager to please and relentless in the face of _my_ selfish caution.” He made the sweeping statement but there was no doubting his word. “These attacks on _my_ family and _our_ brother are _my_ responsibility. _I_ am your commander, your voice, your face, and I have failed to keep the daggers out of our backs! This will be corrected.”

“And then what?” Carver demanded next to her. “You’re already making us wait two, three more days to join and outfit these people. They’re both still missing!”

“Do you trust me, Warden Hawke?” Surana called him out directly, without heat, but with enough focus for it to feel like a wide space opened up around Carver to single him out. “Do you trust me?”

“I want to, Commander.”

“Speak your concern, I’m not here to silence you.”

“I just- I don’t understand how you can be so calm…” The confrontation quelled his temper. Carver didn’t freeze up, but his voice did go quiet.

“Was I calm last night, Warden?” The Commander challenged again, raising his eyes to the rest of them. “Was I calm? _Am_ I calm, Wardens? One of our number whom we all respect and love has been taken, and whoever ordered Warden Connor’s abduction has also taken _my son_.” He tapped the end of his staff on the floor, not a great crack to keep their attention or intimidate them to hold their silence, just a tap. When he drew his next breath it was deep but it hitched slightly at the end, giving them the answer before he could say it: “I am _not_ calm. But I am in command of _myself_ and I will bring our missing back to us, and _no one_ will stand in my way! I need your trust; I _need_ your loyalty- your faith! So that I may do my duty, because this will not be easy.”

“ _I’m_ with you, Warden Commander!” Oghren shouted, and Genevieve lent her voice with a pounding salute to her own breast when the cry was repeated by several others. Surana stopped them with a raised hand, but he nodded with approval before speaking:

“We will ride to Denerim and we will answer His Majesty’s summons,” They- _what!?_ “We will be cordial, and kind, we will greet our _countrymen…_ ” Maker Keep them, at least he had the decency to sneer through those words. “We will be _infallible_ , the picture of comradery and respect- we _will, not, lose_ our respectability before the Landsmeet! We are not the vultures circling overhead! We are not the cowardly fox, poking our nose in another’s den! We are the Grey Wardens of Ferelden, and we will not be harassed! We are no noble’s plaything! No old, toothless, grey-eyed hound’s soft soup bone to mouth on!”

This time his staff thundered, and this time the hall roared with a deep boom from their voices. Genevieve was proud to add to it.

“Prepare the Silver Order for what is to come!” Surana ordered, “Harry their ranks, find those who are weak and discourage them, find those who are strong and test them, warn them that when the doors to the throne room seal them inside they will either leave as corpses or as Grey Wardens! There is honour in serving Amaranthine, there is _sacrifice_ in fighting for the Grey! In peace we find?”

“ _Vigilance!_ ” The Wardens cheered.

“In death, we find!”

“ _Sacrifice!”_

“ _In war, we find!?_ ”

 _“VICTORY!_ ”

And Genevieve was _proud_ to raise her shield to the man who would lead them there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DRAGON! WIFE! DRAGON! WIFE! DRAGON! WIFE! BRING! ME! THE! DRAGON! WIFE!
> 
> The games also don’t give much explanation or building on what a Spirit Healer actually is beyond “communes with spirits”, and “no longer an available specialization after Inquisition”, so I tried to think of something I feel works. I haven’t read Asunder, and I don’t think Wynne actually spoke with her Spirit of Faith the way Soren did here with Duty, but oh well.


	25. Mother and Sister

Connor woke up feeling… _better…?_

He was groggy… felt heavy… but… not cold? Warm. Deliriously _warm…_ His eyes sank shut again without having seen anything but the haze of firelight and the edge of his own blankets. He was warm, Maker, he’d almost forgotten what that felt like. The toastiness of fire-side crackling, the soothing stretch and release of his lungs breathing openly. His head lolled and he winced at the graze of long copper threads brushing his shoulder, irritating his chin: he hadn’t shaved in so long that his face was overgrown…

Hadn’t shaved in… hadn’t _bathed in-_? Maker the sheets were _rank_ around his body, he was warm but _filthy_ , and- and…?

“Connor?” And he was not alone here. One of his arms moved, his hand folded between someone else’s fingers, someone who squeezed tight and then felt up his wrist. “ _Connor?_ ”

“I must still object to this, my lady,” a familiar voice uttered. “In a few more days the hold will be much stronger, but until then-”

“Be silent, I- _Connor?”_ It was his mother’s voice and her hands gripping his. Connor opened his eyes properly and his vision swayed for several blurry moments, but he could see her sitting on he edge of his bed gazing at him. Her thin lips were pulled back with intense worry, eyes pleading and distraught. She’d pulled her thin hair back in a tight bun behind her head, and wore a noblewoman’s fine white and gold winter gown.

“Connor?” She repeated, seated close enough that she could pull his hand up to her heart and reach out to stroke his face. He was still propped up on the pillows piled behind him. “My poor boy, can you hear me?” Hear her, see her, but still he laid there and struggled to believe that it _was_ her. There was a heavy, crushing weight of disappointment settling over him now, because with this there was no plausible way for Connor to deny it: his family was responsible for this. They’d done this, arranged it, planned it, paid gold for it. Hesserian’s Merciful Blade- they’d _abducted_ him.

“My son, say something…” Lady Isolde pleaded. Grief and disappointment still had Connor spellbound when she turned her gaze and hissed at the hidden Crow: “What have your poisons _done_ to him?”

The man was out of sight and separated from Connor by the gathered folds of a woven red bed curtain. He had heard him speak once before this upset, and now the Crow spoke again:

“He is lucid, your grace. I think he simply did not expect to see you here.” Lucid, yes, one of the many benefits of demon-infested runs through the Fade. Connor’s memory and awareness during his waking hours was _commendable_ to his prison guard. Speaking of memory, however, Connor’s recalled a feral demand from his last dream. Under the blankets his fingers were compliant as his thumb twisted and rolled across his bare fingers, the hand in his mother’s grasp writhing the same way, startling her.

‘ _One bolt could stop her heart,’_ something whispered to him, a foul and noxious hate that startled him so badly it brought shameful tears to his eyes. The conjuring mark for lightning hovered in his mind. He could bring it forth in his palm, turn his fingers to her chest, and shatter her body with the spell before the Crow could even _think_ to kill him.

“Maker Be Praised, you _do_ know me,” her misplaced relief fanned the brewing revolt in his gut- _kill her?_ That wasn’t him! Connor’s own mother murdered by his magic? No…

All she had to do was embrace him tightly with her own pitiful sobs, and Connor felt the taint’s violent impulses rise back up again. Fire, lightning, ice, the sheer concussive force of getting her _away_ from him. The need was strong but the act revolted him. He couldn’t, no- it wasn’t _right_. It wasn’t _him_ , it was the taint. He forced his eyes shut against the horrible thoughts and tried to speak:

“Where- is my ring?” He gasped, and she let go of him with her face ripped between joy and confusion. Had she expected him to cry out for her instead? After everything she’d done to him?

“Connor, I need you to focus…” She said, but with the space open between them he clapped a hand to his own chest, fear and taint nipping at him when the solid lump of his pendant and key were missing. His shirt was white and not black, he had none of his armour or belongings. “Your father is still angry and has not forgiven you for the vicious words you shared in Denerim.” Why wasn’t he in Denerim? Where was he? _Where was he_? Was this _Redcliffe?_ How long had they-?

“I know I can convince him to see reason eventually, but Rowan does not have that much time, my sweet.” She implored him, hands taking his face and the unwanted contact made him try to pull away- no! “I cannot _bear_ to explain to her that her father and brother have clashed so violently, but giving you your name will only upset your father further: so you will take mine, because as my son it is your right to do so.” But she’d _done this to him-_ why would he _take_ -? “Connor, until you and your father can forgive each other, you are known here as _Enchanter Dufort_. It is your name, and it is your _right._ ” He didn’t _want it!_

“My oath-” He gasped again, hissing through his teeth and feeling up along his throat and neck, confirming at there was no string, no leather strap, no chain holding what was most precious to him. “My oath pendant-” Maker! He needed her to let _go!_

“Baubles and trinkets are things we must let go of and ignore.” She scolded him, finally letting his face go. “You are here now, Connor, and-”

“ _No._ ” His magi signet ring from Surana’s hand to his after his Harrowing. His knife from Master Dennet promising him a life beyond Skyhold. His Warden pendant draped over his head by Nathaniel after his Joining. They were his. He wanted them _back_.

“I must cut this short, your Grace.” The Crow’s voice interrupted. “This is not a kind topic and his anger will undo days of hard work. The Warden taint is-”

“A crime against my son’s soul!” Lady Isolde shouted, “and I told you to be _silent!_ ” Connor laid the hand she had been holding across his gut, his body still propped against the bed’s pillows. The taint licked and hungered at him, heating his blood as insult and anger and disbelief all began to mix violently at his core. His ring, his knife, his pendant: he wanted them back. They were his. He wanted them _back_. Sod the name- he didn’t care, he’d go by Connor The Bastard if he had to before taking the name of the woman _shrieking_ at his bedside, hysterical filth dribbling past her thin lips.

“Magic _alone_ was the Maker’s curse!” She carried on, ignoring the Crow’s protests and her outrage flamed by his calm voice. “The _taint_ is because of that rat-earred-” _No._

“Mother,” she looked and the taint ripped his arm up, the back of his hand striking her chin and cracking her teeth together. The block knocked her clear off the bed and to the floor with a scream. The pillows behind Connor’s body vanished.

“ _Compradi!”_ Before he could drop flat without support: _now_ there was something around his neck. A thin strap closed across his throat with two strong hands twisting the ends to choke him. The sigil in his mind flared and electricity crackled between his fingers as he pulled his arm free of the blankets- but someone grabbed the wrist and a blade bit down sharp through his twisted shoulder. The pain made the spell falter, the taint securing his focu-

“I _warned_ you!” The Crow’s leader, the one Connor had seen again and again and again, took his free arm, twisted it out painfully and slammed his closed fist down on Connor’s face. He lost the spell and couldn’t breathe, gagging against the painful welt cutting into his throat and the flooding warmth spilling down his chest and arm. The blood came out free and thick as the knife was ripped away, his heart slamming his ribs as the taint burned through his body, reinforcing and spurring it to keep fighting. He kicked his legs at the blankets and felt shock hit him like a cold dart when he found something tied around each ankle and tethered to the bed, only a few inches of give on either limb and not enough time or strength to get away.

No- no he would not _die like this!_

The taint surged like a hungry beast, devouring the poisons lurking in his blood and- and causing another spark of _panic?_ He didn’t _feel_ poisoned? He-? No- _No, no, no…_

_Cold._

_No-_

**_Cold…_ **

Fear made his heart seize, the taint tearing away the warmth and jolting his body with the _cold, cold, cold_ that had tormented him for days. He choked and tried to cry out against the strap cutting his throat, both arms restrained as he started to shake, and go chill, and go _cold- no, not again…_

Panic and fear made the taint fail like a wave breaking on a shoal before the shore. Words were spoken and his bleeding throat was freed at last. He tried to breathe and- and-

Tried _. Failed._ No-

Cold lungs, half-breaths, his chest seizing up too cold to open, ribs brittle. No, no, his magic slipped away under the barrier of ice clouding his eyes all over again, panic screaming as hands left his body but he couldn’t move except to curl his icy fingers and struggle with his bound legs. There was speaking, there were voices. Had the knife been poisoned? Why had the _taint_ -?

“Some luck and excitement at last,” the Crow stated, looming over him like death. His _‘Compradi’_ retreated silently back into the shadows of the room, shadows Connor could hardly make out anymore. He was cold- so cold, cold all over again. “Such a pity when our nature demands one thing and our bodies another, isn’t it, Enchanter?”

Connor couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe- couldn’t answer. He was shaking all over, eyes struggling wildly as he found himself flat on his back, bleeding and _freezing_ and Maker help him he must have been _dying_. The blood slipping out of his skin was just as cold as the rest of him, if not worse.

“You will keep your Grey Warden nature under better control,” he was told. “And I will let you suffer like this for now in order to teach you _why_.”

The Crow snapped his fingers and Connor’s body convulsed blindly as _pain, pain, incredible pain_ speared down over his flesh. His lungs coughed, eyes burned, and over his own hoarse, broken gasps Connor heard water drip and trickle from the soaked bedding. Water. It was just w-water-?

“You see, Ser Knight?” That sing-song voice asked the spinning shadows. “The withdrawal will punish him better than fists or whips could manage. Embrium numbs the body- without it the skin is too sensitive. It opens the lungs, therefore without it they clamp shut. It warms the body, and when it runs out it leaves the subject feeling-” _Cold, cold, unbearably, painfully, overwhelmingly cold…_ “The surest way to control someone is to make it so that they _need_ you, is this not better than whatever that sword would have accomplished? Go now, let him suffer.” The water was growing colder, becoming icy. It was freezing, _he_ was freezing, a second skin of crackling frost and sharp, naked fingers of pain. Andraste- make it stop, _make it stop, make it stop make it stop make it stop make it…_

Connor didn’t go back to the Fade because Connor could not _sleep_. He lay frozen, drenched, bound and bleeding and he couldn’t escape. He needed the rotunda and the black city and the yellow sky. He needed respite and escape and safety and not this- Maker, not this- make it _stop_ …

The hands that straightened his body out _hurt_ him. He laid there with his convulsions, unable to harness the taint a second time and honestly too scared of what might happen to him if he forced it to come back. The pain singing through his cut shoulder and roped around his neck screamed like nails down his mind’s slate walls, and the blind fear of the hands that lifted and dropped his wet body kept him choking for every breath.

His shoulder was padded and bound in gauze, his left arm folded up across his chest and covered in wraps to keep the shakes from disturbing the wound, something tingling over the rip that meant it may have been dressed in elfroot. The linen wraps did nothing to calm him, they were frosted chains cut across his body and binding his frozen ribs closer together. Something was rubbed down along the raw welt across his throat, and when they went to dress it Connor struggled to cry out or flinch away from the sensation of something closing around his neck- make it _stop_.

He couldn’t hear _anything_ over the frantic thunder of his heart and his own raw, ratcheting breaths. The bed was cold, it was so _damned cold_ , the water soaking through the blankets, through whatever straw or wool or feathers or wood were beneath him. His heart was ripping from the frigid tendrils of pain curling around it, lungs sloshing with weight and damp that was trying to drown him. If he wept he didn’t notice, if he prayed the Maker couldn’t hear it. Just make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. _Make it stop_ …

There didn’t come a cup or a laugh or an inane and almost friendly comment. What came was the wooden spout of a funnel wedged between his chattering teeth, and then a luke-warm river that burned and sloshed and melted down his clogged throat. He swallowed automatically, choking on some but prepared to suck it down if he could, anything to make it stop. _Just make it stop…_

“Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm…” Connor repeated to himself as he landed in the Fade. He was formless at first, frightened, anxiety shedding off his spirit like old skin under an Orlesian sun. He was not calm, but he told himself to try, just _try_ and filter through his own emotions before they drew something devastating and ugly down on his head. Connor was in no state to run about fighting demons right now, he would be in bad enough shape when he woke up again, he _needed_ to be calm.

“What happened to me?” What _was_ happening? Trying to pull the details from a waking memory in the Fade was almost as hard as trying to recall a dreamed experience when awake. He put his eyes down against his palm, remembering his scars, conjuring his gauntlets and the weight of his vambraces. “I was angry, it called the taint, and the taint did _what?_ ”

It had burned through the poisons in his blood, trying to purge his body. But Connor had not _been_ poisoned- had he? The taint wasn’t a conscious thing and Connor didn’t control it anymore than he did his heart or hunger, but it served a purpose and that was to make sure that when he had to fight, he could do it well and unobstructed by anything around or inside of him. At least that was what several of Carver’s books had told him, not to mention the other Grey Wardens. There was no reason for the taint to take him from feeling almost fine to back to just as bad and sick as before. Not unless…

Maker the Crow had _said_ something about what he’d felt but the words escaped him now. Connor paced back and forth under the yellow Fade sky, forming the heels and sides of his boots, the fall of his tunic’s silverite edges. His belts and staff and pauldron, remembering himself and who he was. His staff he slung across his back, and when he thought of something worth trying he grounded his feet firmly on the gritty stones, held his palm out in front of him, and focused.

 _‘I want it, I want it, I want it._ ’ He visualized the rift that would need to form, remembered the colour of the bindings and weight of the pages, the flutter of old parchment and vellum. He caught the book when it writhed into existence in the Fade with him, brushing his hands over the old cover. He couldn’t read it, not in a dream, but he knew the title anyways: it was Carver’s book of herbs and poultices from the Vigil. The pages blurred and confused themselves in front of him, but he wasn’t reading for something new, he was reaching for something already known.

No, not this book. This book was for applications, simple recipes, and care instructions for growing and tending the plants themselves. He shut the book and… and then he brought the binding up to his face, taking a deep breath. It smelled like lavender, not because it was really the same book, but because he needed to remember what the original felt like.

Tucking the book under his arm, Connor used both hands to conjure this time. He _wanted_ this, he did not need it, he merely _wanted_ it, _desired_ it, and with a press of both palms and a rolling back of his wrists, he lifted his arms and the Fade groaned, resisted, and then shuddered with a dusty clatter of old bricks. A long wooden table settled on the rotunda’s floor and Connor walked over to it, swiping his palm over the dusty surface to reveal the fine grain and _annoying_ set of hammer-marks beaten into the otherwise new finish. The wood was thick and solid, its feet firmly planted on the imaginary ground. He swept away more of the dust and set Carver’s book down.

He must have written it down at some point, and that was why he conjured an ink-well and pen, both closed and capped, and pulled the sturdy wood-bound body of his journal to him. He lifted the wooden cover with the words _Property of Warden Guerrin, Mage of Vigil’s Keep_ etched across the inside, and let his fingers carry through the thick, fine white vellum pages searching for something he would have written down, _must_ have made note of. Wouldn’t he and Jylan have discussed embrium? Hadn’t Commander Surana said something to him? He knew this, he knew he knew it. It was addictive, he had to be cautious when giving it to someone, and he _knew the reasons why_ \- so what were they? It wasn’t in his journal.

Had Jylan said it? Jylan must have said it. Jylan wrote very little down but _when he did_ -

Connor conjured his friend’s pale leather recipe book. It was small, no longer or wider than Connor’s hand, of pale yellow hide with only a few dozen slips of rough paper inside. He kept it at his belt when working and usually only consulted it to take stamps and acknowledge services rendered from the workshop to the Vigil’s denizens. He wouldn’t have written down embrium symptoms, but he would have had it with him when he and Connor discussed it, and they _must have_ at some point, and the book would have been there and right now that was enough. Jylan had held this, Jylan had said this, Jylan had… been talking about rashvine.

“Maker take me from this stupid place!” Connor tossed the book down with the other two, folding his arms crossly and tapping his foot, wrestling for a way forward. Surana? The Commander knew enough of herbs and potions to tell their quality and value.

Connor had only ever seen the Commander’s writing on scrolls and orders. If the Archmage had a spell book or a journal of some kind then he doubtless kept it in his office or hidden someplace that was none of Connor’s business. He summoned three of the thick, pristine vellum scrolls stamped with the Grey Warden’s seal, unrolling the white face of one and finding the Commander’s crest stretched beautifully across the top and down the margins of the page. The words, as always were a blur, but Surana must have said something, must have warned him or made a joke or thought it was quaint how… something. _Something_.

No, they’d been discussing demons, not herbs.

A curl of paper that made him think of Zevran jogged no memories. Mistress Valora’s well-used and tattered hide book also led nowhere. Mistress Velanna’s fine ledger and Garevel’s unwieldly tome of accounting grids and ordered lists both turned up nothing. Why his book of perfumes and soaps was there Connor did not know, and a green and gold-gilded copy of _Ride of the Chevaliers_ was equally useless to him. Connor had a collection of books, scrolls, notebooks, and stray parchment gathering across the table, volumes and bindings stacking up when his focus faded here and there and the Fade seemed to be saying _‘books! I know what books are, let me fill this place with books for you_ ’ in response to his memories and summons.

Connor let the Fade go about its business of pretending to imitate something and doing a poor job of it. The rotunda’s walls quickly bricking themselves with empty bookshelves, drawing on his memories. Carver’s overwhelmed collection of brightly coloured books tumbled and jammed together on the shelves of one, the empty body of Connor’s standing closet quickly cluttering itself up with apothecary tools and miscellaneous objects. Surana’s crystals and just-so books from the staged estate were left next to half-eaten plates of light food and old wine, scrolls in their stacks and an indistinct mage’s staff leaning on the shelves. Jylan owned very little except borrowed books and bundles upon bundles of brightly dyed thread, and Evie’s collection of fine bottles, good wine, and sweet-smelling lovelies were quaint and delicate. Velanna’s dismal arrangement of tax records, old almanacs, and bland history took up shelf after shelf after shelf, bleeding into memories of Skyhold’s own round library, reaching further and further down through developing twists and hallways to bleed into the dark, dank, confounding turns of Kinloch Hold’s once-grand collection. The rotunda’s yellow body was still whole, but there was a great side of it blown out by Skyhold’s amber light, and further down Connor could see the deep indigo and blue of his old, old life…

Maker Take Him, maybe it had been a lesson from his time in the Circle. Connor pulled his staff into his hands and left, ignoring the steps and door that led to places he had already been, he left the relative safety of the rotunda and travelled down. The sky turned amber and dark red as he moved through Skyhold, the Fade echoing with a very bad impression of Spymaster Nightingale’s rookery, and then the light dimmed further, to the chill and damp of Kinloch Hold…

It had not once, not since leaving the Circle Tower on that cold and terrible night, occurred to Connor to go back to the island. He felt no nostalgia as the Fade fed off the memories of high, vaulted chambers, of the dusty blue marble doorways, the arrays of white light spilling through ornate windows. He’d spent seven long years of his life at Kinloch Hold and while Connor wished with all his heart things could have ended differently, he had no wish to go back to it now.

Connor should have simply given himself the uncomfortable task of thinking of something that reminded him of the Crow. That was the man who’d said what Connor wanted to know, wasn’t it? But instead he was here, in the annals of the circle library, plodding his way through the whispers of lessons and sparks of old, boring drills.

Now light the candle, now snuff it out, now light the candle, now snuff it out, now light the candle, and now snuff it out. That’s not how you draw the mark for fire, this is not the array for lightning, if you connect the lines like this you’ll blow your eyebrows off! Maker, he’d spent too many hours in this place with the tedium of spellwork. He remembered lessons only as frightening and anxiety-inducing, but maybe he’d just been dreadfully _bored_ of it all. Outdone by Amara at every turn and with every spell, exasperated by Jylan’s unwillingness to do more than balance his ink-pot on his nose.

“Well this is sinister…” Following the Fade’s path through the library led him not to another turn of Kinloch Hold’s spiraling body, but to a small, distinctly red and warm corridor. He marvelled at how distinct it was, stepping from the cold blue light into a hallway that seemed almost fully formed.

There were red fur rugs and carpets down the bending corridor, flames hovering where torches had forgotten to form, large stone blocks making up the walls and standing with familiar firmness and warmth. He passed one doorway and saw a familiar hall with pennants waving indistinct in an unfelt air, too curious to be nervous as he passed a stone mabari bust and the too-tall body of a suit of decorative armour. Connor’s mind had no reason to think of Redcliffe Castle in his search for answers, even if he had inadvertently thought of the Crow this was far too much detail to be his fault. He didn’t even know for _sure_ if he was actually in Redcliffe Castle or not…

There was power here, Connor knew the feeling of stepping into a demon’s domain by this point, he knew when the Fade had formed itself over nights and nights of steady dreaming into something almost real. He kept his staff firmly in his grasp, the rod behind him and head slung low as he stepped lightly, telling the Fade to muffle his steps on the rug, to carry him very slowly rather than all at once down the passage. Where there was power, soon there were voices muffled by closed doors: echoing memories brought forth to torment and do harm.

 _“Monster! Demon!_ ” He heard shouted, slipping smooth and slow against the wall, stopping by a closed door and bringing his staff up straight in front of him. “ _Cruel spawn! Maker take you!”_ Connor would call the voice female the way he would say a shiver was a dance, there was indeed movement in the one and certainly words were spoken for the other. But it was a thin, crackled veneer that simply didn’t stick, flawed and rasping with a demon’s throaty, echoing tones. “ _The Maker hates you, Andraste turns her back away! You betray everything, ruin it, disgusting creature!”_

Something ceramic shattered, there was the heavy bump and thud of furniture being moved. Connor heard the false lilt of the voice and recognized the mimicked accent- the demon was trying to be Orlesian: it was Lady Isolde? That didn’t actually make it his mother, but it was trying to be, and if he killed her image in the Fade then perhaps Connor would be better prepared to deal with her again when he woke up and saw her next. Yes, he liked that train of thought, it was far more comforting than wondering who in all the world a demon would be speaking too through the mask of his mother’s face and voice.

Velanna’s long-gone admonishment about how magic expressed itself in the Fade reminded him of something. Why open the door himself and be right there when he interrupted the demon, when he could do something he’d seen Captain Lavellan do in the Vigil’s training yard? He just had to challenge the demon’s will on the door without lyrium or any idea what exactly he was dealing with: _no problem, right?_

This was stupid, but it was going to work. Why? Because it had to, because Connor wanted it to, because whatever he failed to do here he would hear about when he woke up. Because it wasn’t fair for a little girl to remain trapped in a dream with a demon wearing her mother’s face and _screaming_ at her…

Standing next to the door Connor made a fist, took the dream hard in his mind and punched his arm out, ripping the portal wide open and telling the door that for good measure it shattered against the opposite wall! The demon’s will broke against his like a soft wave, its focus snapped by the sudden and violent intrusion. He felt it rush the door and his staff swung in an uppercut from where the wall still protected him, the casting head careening through the bottom of Lady Isolde’s chin and jaw, slamming her head back and spouting blood through the dream. A creature of mangled green limbs and shrieking teeth hit the floor and rolled over itself like a macabre doll, howling with sudden fury as Connor stepped into the doorway, staff level, and several thick rolling red ropes of fire spewed from his staff to engulf it.

_How dare you!?_

With a step and twist that brought him into the room, evading skeletal hands that swept at him through the curtain of fire and lashing out with the haft of his staff, a bolt launching from the end followed by two more as his arms and feet worked independently, carrying him into the small bedroom and manipulating his staff to keep those claws away. Black began to flake and steam off the demon as it struggled. Connor calmly wrapped a prismatic barrier around himself for the monster to beat and howl, then extended his palm out. Lightning crackled from his shoulder and arced off his silverite pauldron, and he let the spell thunder through the demon’s head. It vanished in a flurry of black smoke and was gone.

The room immediately began to lose its details. The fire lost focus and reduced itself to something bright and wavering in the general vicinity of the fireplace’s bulge in the wall. The bed only had three banisters, the broken china was hovering six inches off the warped and twisting grey floor. The colours lost their pop and the ceiling floated away, revealing the grey Fade and the inky expanse of the black city.

Connor kept his tunic blue, his silverite shining, leather belts and vambraces supple and dark. His hair was red and his face was scarred, the serpentstone head of his staff crackled with green and yellow before he slung the obsidian-flecked rod over his back again. He kept the floor under his boots firm and straight because he could not wake up yet, not until the embrium and abuse done to his body allowed it.

He felt fear that didn’t belong to him. When he looked about the room he saw no one, but he felt the fear just the same. He saw the sugar-sprinkled cookies floating in the mess of broken china, then noticed books with bright blue and green covers- stories of great knights and lords and kings. There was a chest ajar with a plush mabari hanging out of it, a toy sword and shield resting in the corner by a tilted armoire. He told himself to stay calm, this was not his sister’s room: it was only a twisted reflection of it.

He felt fear and confusion, a moaning, far-reaching wail of desperation. He didn’t _hear_ it the way he would a proper voice, but this was the Fade and it was almost as good. It was fear that choked and sobbed and hiccupped, made her body crush and crumple up like dry leaves. She was small here, as small as could be, small enough to hide and not be seen and not be blamed and not be yelled at. The fear rippled and poured like tears because she didn’t want to be taken away, or sent away, or dragged away to nobody knew what fate because the Maker himself hated mages and magic and there were demons and darkspawn all crawling through her, poisoning her, making mama and father hate her and-

“I know you’re still in here,” Connor said, curious about the way his voice felt in the dream. His lips and tongue moved but really it was his mind that made it work, like a penny falling in dark water whose ripples held more meaning than the sound. “You can come out now, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The fear _spiked_ , panic and terror mingling like wheezing breaths and shrieks for help. The emotions wailed and radiated outward, shrinking away trying to become smaller, smaller, stay hidden, _hidden_ , away from him: whoever he was. He’d killed _mama_ …

“This isn’t real, none of it is.” Connor tried to reassure her, following the strain and sadness and echoing fear through the room, to the bed, to _under_ the bed. “You’re dreaming, Rowan.”

The fear broke the way a whimper fractured into a full-bodied scream. A ripping, straining pain that the dreaming mind couldn’t name sobbed and wailed and screamed, just _screamed_ , and the wiser mage in Connor put the name despair to it, because at too many points in his life he had felt it too.

“Hush, girl, _hush,_ ” he breathed, fixing his staff to the floor and sliding down it with both hands, kneeling across the rug tucked under the skirt of the bed. “You’ll wake up soon and you’ll be safe again. And so long as I’m here you’re safe anyhow. It’s a dream, Rowan, I promise.” But she cried, and she wailed, and she sobbed, and the pain echoed and rippled and it did not calm. “Is there any way for me to coax you out from under there?”

The fear crashed again with it’s shrill, terrorized screaming, and he held out a hand to the bed, asking for calm.

“Then I’ll stay right here.” He’d killed _mama_ , he’d killed _mama_ \- “No, Rowan. What I killed was a demon wearing your mother’s face, nothing more.” He’d killed _mama_ , he’d killed _mama_ \- he’d hit her and burned her and made her _scream_ and then he- “ _Rowan-_ I…”

It was no use. Connor nearly stood up and left her there- not because he _wanted_ to, but because his presence clearly wasn’t making things any better. If he stayed in the hall then she would be safe in the room- but this was the Fade and the walls didn’t have to stay where they were. Hadn’t the rotunda taught him anything? He had to stay in the room in case her distress tempted another demon to find her. There was no point trying to speak to her again until she calmed down: to her this was a nightmare and indistinguishable from reality, to him it was just the Fade. She didn’t _know_ any better.

He took a seat against the wall by the fire, pushing the chest of toys aside to make enough room for himself. He made the fire’s glow more distinct and properly fire-like, and settled himself down next to it. He told himself he would be comfortable, sitting here, waiting here, and propped his staff against his shoulder as he bent his knees and took a slow, steady breath. He closed his eyes and his awareness of the room didn’t change, but he closed them for the sake of not staring at the bed where the muffled cries were puddling. He couldn’t calm her, but he couldn’t leave her either.

“You’ll wake up before I do, and when you look at the fire I won’t be here.”

Connor’s sister cried, and cried, and cried in her nightmare.

And Connor, hurting, waited for her to wake up.


	26. In Mother's Garden

“We took the liberty, at last, of properly bathing you.” What a horrible conflict that announcement planted in him as Connor woke up. “You were already soaked through, it seemed an ideal time to get the task over with.”

He’d had Crow hands all over his body while he slept, it was horrifying to consider and made his skin crawl and shudder under his clothes. He wasn’t on the bed anymore, but on a cot closer to the fire: the blood and water and filth of several days confinement to the bed had required the mattress be removed, although the Crow went on to say that the bedding was being washed and the mattress re-stuffed.

“Now,” the master said, seated comfortably on the rugs near Connor’s cot where the Warden himself was propped up by a wooden plank behind his back. He could see the man’s straight nose and grinning teeth now, the silver and grey threaded through that black beard. His hair was long down the back of his neck but not tied away, delicate braids woven from his temples to keep him looking neat. Thick eyebrows, dark eyes with long lashes. He was very handsome and Connor disliked that fact intensely. “What have we learned from all of this?”

“That it takes three Antivan Crows to hold down one Fereldan mage.” Connor felt ‘ _better’_ again. He wasn’t cold, not even on the side facing away from the fire. He could breathe, his shoulder ached and pained intensely but if he used his right hand to hold up his left elbow it took the tension off the wound piercing his body. The sling and wide bandage around his body had gone slack and he refused to ask for help. His magic was a low, slow burn in his ribs that he didn’t want to tease out for fear of being attacked again.

“A _Grey Warden_ mage!” The Crow laughed, and Connor felt himself tense up as the older man levered himself up and crept closer to him. He knelt and took the wrist of Connor’s injured arm, holding firmly and running his hand across his chest inside the first length of bandages, finding the slack and pulling it taut until he reached the knot over Connor’s shoulder, deftly loosening it and retying it to carry the weight of his arm. He did the same thing with the second sheet of linen holding his arm against his chest, the new knot bracing the limb securely. “There, now you will not sit so twisted.”

“You know I could heal it myself in a few moments,” Connor said, and the Crow laughed again, clapping him on his good shoulder.

“After that wonderful display of yours this morning, I am not so sure that would go well.” He said, white teeth grinning over his dark beard. “The Knights are not so pleased with you.”

“Their Commander disgraced himself by bringing poisoned wine to the men and women he’d just apologized to for disrespect,” Connor told him bluntly. “The Knights of Redcliffe can go sod themselves.” The loud laughter that answered him rung with approval. The Crow felt genuine but Connor was still displeased.

“I _greatly_ prefer having you awake, Enchanter.” Stop that.

“You know I’m a Grey Warden; you keep bringing it up,” Connor finally jumped at the topic. “Why do you keep calling me Enchanter?”

“Because it is what my employer has demanded,” he answered smooth and easy from the fireside. “A simple thing, irritating to you it seems, but that is not enough to discourage me.” Connor would see about _that_.

“Where am I?” He asked, hoping another bold question would get another blunt answer.

“In your room.” No such luck, the Crow smiled.

“What happened to my companions?” He tried again. “Back in Denerim?” To Carver and Evie? To Nathaniel and An’eth and Meelo?

“Presumably, they were happened upon shortly after our departure by the city guards.” That was only a partial answer, what Connor wanted was: “Do understand that the cost of eliminating five Grey Wardens would likely have pushed the price of the contract beyond what my employers could reasonably afford. One of them had to be _convinced_ not to resist the situation, but Grey Wardens are not known to fall on the ends of thin blades.” There was a nod to Connor’s own shoulder with that comment, and he felt his hand creeping back up under his elbow again, cradling the limb.

“Embrium for the night and that was it?” He asked, telling himself not to let his heart rise too high all at once. “They survived?”

“I have not been informed of the contrary.” Then why had they not followed? Not tried to find him? Or had they made an attempt only to be repelled by the Crows? Had they survived _that_ as well? Were they still coming or had they given up? What was happening outside this room?

“What happens now?” Was the question he finally voiced, not even sure why he should bother trusting a single word the Crow spoke to him. “You’re keeping me awake for longer, why?”

“To build up your stamina, slowly.” That was another half-answer, words drizzled over his smile. “The Crows were not hired to keep you bedridden and delirious, it was simply easier to transport you in such a state. You are here to lend expertise to your family’s magical woes, and I am here to make sure you do so.” Rowan.

“And if I refuse?” Connor dared. “If I won’t teach her anything?”

“Then I will persuade you to reconsider.” The threat was clear and Connor felt the fear creep from his gut up between his ribs, strangling the heat in his chest without leaving him cold- not yet. “I believe the Arlessa would much prefer to turn me out than have my men and I loiter for many more weeks, she takes no pleasure in my methods. If you prove agreeable then I’m certain we shall part on amicable terms.” The shock of that statement nearly rendered him mute. _Amicable?_

“After you drugged, abducted, humiliated, and-?” The Crow interrupted him with more laughter and this time it sounded foul to him.

“It is all in the attitude we bring forward, Enchanter,” he scolded, and Connor thought he was mad. “This is only a contract, not a personal character assassination. Who knows, if we do a good enough job this time perhaps House Valisti’s next contract will be patroned by the Grey Wardens?”

He stared at the mad-man for several seconds, completely at a loss for _anything_ worth thinking or saying at this point. Connor just had to shake his head, a disgusted noise in his throat as he looked away and stared into the fire instead. He had no other means of escape at this point, not until they put him back to sleep.

At _least_ now he knew the name of the Crow House behind the contract, but foolish him he’d never bothered asking Zevran anything about the Antivan Crows. Maybe Valisti was important, or maybe it was a house of nobodies. It didn’t make a difference because Connor just didn’t know.

The Crow let him sulk for what felt like a generous amount of time, then went back to speaking to him in that relaxed way he always did. He chuckled to himself like Connor was somehow good company and relished the way Connor’s face had clearly reacted to the fact that his legs had been bound this whole time and he’d never noticed. The ropes were not, apparently, actually meant to make him uncomfortable or heavily restrained, they were just another minor complication like the blankets and the other assassins hiding in the room: an obstacle to freedom that would be enough to let them get the jump on him if he tried going rogue again. His legs were bound again right now, actually, his ankles were loosely looped with leather cords that meant he could only separate his feet by so far. It was just enough length to let him bring one knee up at a time if he desired to, and it would shorten his stride to no more than a steady walk.

The Crow seemed to think Connor would be won-over by the fact that the restraints were soft leather, not iron chains. What a wonderful way of proving his mother was only concerned about him and not _quite_ ready to have him drugged, guarded, and tied up in his-

“Oh _wait._ ” Connor interrupted himself, teeth clenched. The Crow was so tangled up in his own stifled laughter that there was a shine over his eyes, the sick _bastard_.

“We can always go ahead and break your legs for a change of pace,” he offered.

“I could always go ahead and do something to warrant someone here killing me, and where would that leave my lovely, tender-hearted mother?”

“Is your ire riled up so far already?” He asked. “But I won’t be so easily manipulated. The contract states you must be kept alive and capable of teaching magic, and House Valisti does not break contracts. It would take quite the upset for you to succeed in a reckless suicide- but significantly less for me to begin removing limbs.”

“Aren’t contracts void if the employer dies from mage-fire?” Connor asked, not sure why he even bothered because just the _thought_ of… No, not with his magic. He was angry and violated and a hundred more violent, negative things, but Connor could not murder his mother with magic. Or his sister. Or anyone else for that matter- except the Crows. The Crows he would gladly turn against, no matter how _‘reasonable’_ this one kept trying to say he was.

“It’s certainly entertaining when something like that happens,” was the only answer he got.

Connor felt his lungs grow heavy and his breaths come shorter and shorter as the cycles of silence and conversation drifted by. When he began to feel cold he knew it was his previous dose of embrium wearing off, his body beginning to quietly, persistently ask for something it was now accustomed to always having at the ready. His wounded shoulder began to throb, and throb, and throb, the pain branching down his bicep and cramping tightly, his lungs growing tighter. He bit his tongue when he felt his jaw start to shake, staring into the fire and oblivious to the fact that he was rocking himself, gently, not too much, but all together it was plenty.

“Would you prefer to sleep, or to walk?”

“What-?” Connor looked at him as the Crow heaved himself up off the floor, not moving all that gracefully before sauntering over to his table of instruments and ingredients. There was a pouring sound and the clink of a copper rod whipping powders and water together, heating them over a small alchemical flame. He hoped it was embrium to ease the chills before he became overwhelmed by the sensations creeping up and out from his heavy lungs. Connor hated that he hoped it was the drug.

“You will have to move about eventually,” the Crow continued in his casual way, his back to Connor as he worked. “If not now, then in the morning. We will have you walk about the room a few times and see how well the mild exercise affects you.” He turned just enough to look over his shoulder at Connor and the fire, his tone had not changed from before. “Your preference, Enchanter?”

“You’re letting me choose?”

“It makes no difference to me beyond how much of the flower I mix at a time,” he said. “It is your body, one you seem understandably cross with, so you make the decision.” It was such a simple question and an ultimately meaningless choice, but Connor still couldn’t quite believe that it was being given to him. Neither option was _good_ for him, both involved taking more of the drug instead of helping him break free from it- but it was a choice.

“I want to walk.”

“Understandable.” The mixture finished heating and was stirred again, something else added that Connor couldn’t see from so far away. What was carried back to him was a wooden cup, Connor’s sense of touch still stable enough despite the creeping chills that he knew it was not hot enough to steam, meaning it could be swallowed quickly without burning.

His heart clenched tightly when he looked down and saw a heavily clouded mixture of grey sitting in the cup, flecks of red embrium petal scattered on top. Andraste’s Divine Mercy, the draught he’d prepared for the mages at the Vigil hadn’t been _half_ so thick as this. He wouldn’t be able to walk, he probably wouldn’t wake up _at all_ if he- haha, he’d been played. He’d walked right into this one as surely as he’d been forever falling for Hawke or Nathaniel pointing over his shoulder and asking _‘aren’t you missing something?’_ on the road across Orlais without his staff.

“Only a mouthful,” the Crow instructed. “The rest when you are ready to sleep.” Connor still didn’t trust him, he had absolutely no reason to do so.

He took the cup to his mouth and pulled in a draw. It tasted awful, metallic and bitter and _thick_ with suspended, chalk-like embrium. He expected to gag or shake or his body to tell him hard and fast that _no_ , this was an awful thing to let into himself, but it went down easy instead. It was warm and it flooded through his chest, hitting his stomach like a heavy load of heat that started to disperse immediately outward. He handed the cup back to the Crow without further comment, alarmed by the way he very strongly… did not _want_ to give it back.

The condition for walking was that his legs remain hobbled. Connor didn’t see the point of putting conditions on him when he was a _prisoner_ and had been bedridden for _days_. He tried asking how long he had been here, how many days ago had he been in Denerim, but the answers were all cryptic and evasive _‘not long enough’_ and _‘plenty for this to be a challenge_ ’ and so on. With his wounded arm moving himself around without hurting his shoulder brought an added challenge. His cot was a wooden plank over two trunks, and Connor had to be thankful for it because from the floor he didn’t know if he could have made it all the way to his feet- especially with the hobble.

Standing made his legs shake, bare feet confused and swollen from what could have been _weeks_ of laying flat on his back. Connor couldn’t feel bedsores, at least not proper ones, but his unconscious bath had left his skin feeling raw and sore in places too unpleasant to think about. He was fully covered in linen trousers and a long tunic, both fresh, but that just meant someone had changed him _out_ of whatever soiled clothes he’d been in before, nevermind the original change from his armour into the white dressings.

“Where is my armour?” He asked, short of breath and struggling not to use the Crow himself as a way to stay on his feet. He didn’t want to hold or lean on him, outright refused the invitation to hook his arm around the man’s shoulder and neck before attempting to take a step. They wouldn’t give him a rod or cane or anything he might try to use as a weapon. And it was _they_ : when standing Connor could finally see one of the other Crows hovering by the stripped bed, arms folded, face bored, and he heard a third man speak to their leader who was laughing at Connor’s adamant refusal to hold on to him. They’d been there the whole time, lo and behold the only three people more bored than their master.

“In a crate taken away by your lady mother.” Finally, an answer to his most important question. It didn’t bring any resolution, but it was an _answer_. “What she did with your belongings I cannot say, she did not tell me nor have any of my men handle them. Perhaps she is having them cleaned and tended for you, or instead she has had them thrown out into the middle of the lake. Only the Maker and Arlessa know for sure.”

Connor grit his teeth and tried not to let the taint rise in him. It would have made walking easier for a few moments, but it would just get him in trouble and- _Maker_ , he was worried about getting in _trouble?_

His steps were small, uneven, and lacked any balance or practice. He fell twice: once right at the beginning that slammed both his knees hard on the stone floor and made him hiss in pain, and then again just before reaching the room’s window. The Crow wasn’t stupid, he saw Connor walking to the only outside portal and knew what he wanted from it: some sort of sign of where under the Maker’s Sky he was. What Connor didn’t understand was that as the apothecary took his good arm again and helped him back up, he didn’t spin Connor away from the window and back to bed.

“Just a few more.” He didn’t want encouragement from the man who’d made him this way!

The window was crossed with a grid of black iron, the light coming through was thin and grey, fading quickly as the hours slipped through evening and Connor could barely see through it. He put a hand to the thick stone sill to keep himself steady, peering out through a flurry of snowflakes and fingers of fine ice weaving themselves over the smoky glass. Snow meant he was far south of Amaranthine, but until someone deigned to tell him the month of the season he wouldn’t know how far for sure.

But he was south, and there were pinpricks of light glowing out a corner of the vantage point. He was in a large, stone building where his mother, sister, and her knights were comfortably kept along with the Crows guarding Connor. There was a lake, a black mass of cold nothing stretching out from under the window, far, far below and no doubt an unassailable drop. His childhood memories weren’t enough to conjure up any forts or manor houses owned by House Guerrin across their Arling, and that meant he had only one reasonable guess to make: he was at Castle Redcliffe, the place where a demon’s possession had driven him to murder hundreds of innocent people and then besiege an entire village.

His armour was at the bottom of Lake Calenhad and Connor was being guarded by Antivan Crows in a room in one of the most defensible fortresses in the country.

“I can go back to sleep now.”

Connor was not going to escape, and he took that miserable truth with him back into the Fade.

What was the point in conjuring his armour this time? What was the point of even bothering to conjure himself? He wasn’t going to escape and he wasn’t going to be rescued. Not the Orlesians, not Darkspawn, not even the Inquisition had ever taken Castle Redcliffe in a fight, and what force in Thedas would ever push Commander Surana to actually launch an attack of that magnitude to try it? He would have to march men the entire length of Ferelden, no doubt against His Majesty’s orders, and risk launching a civil war that would see the Grey Wardens torn to pieces and Vigil’s Keep burned to her lowest foundations. A smaller rescue, if they even knew where he was, if they even had any way of finding him, would never get past the Crows without causing a fight, and a fight would reveal them and disgrace both the order and its commander.

Connor couldn’t expect that much sacrifice, not from anyone, not for him.

Evie would forget him; she could do that. Hawke was her lover and Connor was just… a fondness- an amusement? She’d let him be close to her, to give gifts and attention and comfort and warmth- but none of that was irreplaceable, was it? Not if she had Hawke. It wasn’t as if Connor had ever actually opened his mouth and told her he loved her, he was dear to her because that was the word she’d always used: _mon cher_. Maybe the Wardens would declare him dead or a traitor or a runaway or- _hah_ …!

The first Circle Mage the Hero of Ferelden had trusted to enter the Grey Wardens since Anders, the Apostate of Kirkwall, and Connor had gone missing! He’d just left, vanished, let himself be stolen away by a flower he grew on his own damn balcony! It was brilliant enough to make him laugh, and if he’d been anything more than a thought hovering under the misty yellow light of the Fade then Connor may have wept as well! Evie could forget and move on from him, Surana would curse and blacken his name off the Vigil’s ledger. He’d exist no more in the Vigil’s memory than Anders before him, one mage who’d let his fear of Templars drive him out of his home, the other who’d been too weak and stupid to make his family leave him be.

Maker what would Nathaniel think? How angry would he be at Connor for letting this happen? Trapped and bound and gagged and Maker knew what else the Crows did while he was sleeping.

Oghren would spit and swear and promise an axe in Connor’s head if he ever showed his face again, anything to prove his loyalty to Surana in the face of _another_ mage’s betrayal.

Andraste herself would be the only thing to keep Connor’s failure from attaching itself to the two Wardens he’d fought and argued to have brought into the Order. The tournament itself hadn’t been his idea, but the Joining had been given at his urging- how badly would that affect them? Would the rest of the Vigil know it had nothing to do with them, that An’eth and Hassick needed to just be left alone?

Valora and the Vigil had Jylan to look after the workshop, and Jylan’s tranquil state would keep him from worrying or feeling distressed over Connor’s disappearance. He had his work, his pay, and hopefully the protection of Velanna and Delilah Howe if he ever needed anything. If his childhood friend hadn’t been able to feel happiness at their reunion, then he would be spared any sadness or anger from Connor’s… whatever this would end up being.

And Carver… haha… it was like Evie but worse- or better? At least Connor had apologized first. At least he’d acknowledged his wrongs and made peace with his friend before all of this. At least the only thing left unsaid was Connor’s fault and it was nothing that would have made anything since then easier anyways. Some things were just better left unsaid, and admitting love for two people at the same time was one of them.

Connor went through the faces and the people and yet he knew he would have rather put up with those emotional difficulties than any of this. He would have rather gone back to the Western Approach and that damned darkspawn canyon with its freezing cold nights and blistering hot sun. He would have rather gone back into the Deep Roads, miles from the nearest glimmer of daylight, and fought his way through all kinds of horrors rather than go through this. To avoid everything with Redcliffe and House Guerrin Connor would have gladly taken his Harrowing again, faced rogue templars on an open road, and watched the two people he loved most choose each other over him. Connor would have chosen _anything_ that would not have brought him here, to _this moment_ in the Fade.

Anything?

Yes- anything, _anything_ but go through with this. He’d reached Carver’s dreams once on his own while trapped in the Fade, but they’d only had a wall between them in the real world! He couldn’t travel the Fade across the entire _Fereldan Bannorn_ to try and find him again! It didn’t work like that!

_But what if it did?_

He didn’t even know how to tell time when he was _like this_ , how would he even make an _attempt to_ -?

_Would it have to be so hard?_

What was this? What was happening? Why was he thinking these…?

_Not everything has to be attempted-_

_-all alone._

No- oh _no…_

_It would be possible, with a guide. With power, and knowledge, and an agreement that would see-_

“No.”

 _If the offer is of ‘anything’_.

“It’s not an _offer_ , it’s a _prayer_ ,” Connor said. He was so tired, so miserable, so ready to question _why_ he was even making himself resist this time. The Crows would only mutilate him if he disobeyed or made trouble for them: he didn’t need feet to teach magic, he didn’t have to have whole, unbroken limbs to show the proper way to draw a glyph. They would torment and drug and cut him away, piece by piece, but they’d always know exactly when to stop so they didn’t kill him, because Connor had already boldly and foolishly and stupidly told their master he would welcome it if they tried.

A demon though: a demon would kill him and then rampage through the castle, just like the first one. It would torment and butcher and kill anything it came across, and if he chose a monster strong enough to actually overwhelm or tempt him, then the chaos would-

 _“I said no!_ ”

He summoned lightning. Connor let the marks flash over the dusty ground of the rotunda, the same circular room where he started every time the Crows put him to sleep, and the air ripped with several concussive blasts of spiteful thunder and stubborn light. The magic blasted down through the table the dream had only half-reconstructed, torching the books and toppling the shelves around the room’s edge. He pulled both hands up and crossed his arms over his head, twisting his fingers and rolling his wrists in a weaving dance of light and magic.

**_All_ ** _you have to do is-!_

-turn with both hands braided over with cords of thick white light, flaring his arms out fast and hard to bring the spell crashing against his chest so it flared out brilliant and hot. The air hissed and the rotunda echoed with the horrified screams of a horned demon, violet flesh bubbling as it was bombarded again and again with bolts of magic that spiralled through the light towards and through it. Connor swept his arms down and his will to _stop_ the demon surged through him as he whipped his hands up and a gout of brilliant blue ice erupted under the demon’s hovering toes, encasing and locking it in a hard prison.

He remembered his staff: silverite, obsidian, serpentstone. It was in his hands and it was heavy, brutal and firm and everything he needed with two swift, long strides, to cut the haft straight down through the creature and shatter it into a hundred smoking pieces.

“I will _not_ be used again!” Connor shouted, aware that his voice didn’t carry in the Fade but he didn’t care. Semantics didn’t bother him here, not when he’d come that close to- no. He hadn’t been on the edge of possession, but he’d been close enough to mistake the demon’s whispers for his own thoughts. How much of all this had been him and not it? How much had been both?

He was miserable and yes he was upset, he was in a horrible and awful situation, but he if there was any chance at survival then he would not let himself become corrupted by anything that would make his return to the Grey Wardens impossible. No possessions, no demon, no blood magic, and just to round off the damned list: absolutely _no_ kin-slaying!

His anger burned out once the demon was dealt with. What a horrible mess he’d fallen into… Connor had formed only half his body and looked down now as the rest of it was drawn together in the dream. It upset him when his Grey Warden armour fluttered and confused itself with the long white linens he’d been wearing in the room with his captors. He set it right with a moment of simple focus, and then set himself a series of tasks.

Connor repaired the table, the books, and the shelves with only a few thoughts. He erased the demon’s presence from the rotunda. He was not _fond_ of the space but it was where his mind chose to manifest every time he fell asleep and Connor would not have it bearing the scars of every malevolent spirit that came snarling and hissing through the Fade at him. The shelves still led down through a new door, becoming the second level of Skyhold’s own rotunda, and he could follow the wooden planks further in until he reached Kinloch Hold and all its misery. He was looking for someone, and he retraced the path that had brought him to her last time.

Sure enough, Connor found the same path back into a dreamed up version of Redcliffe castle but it was in a sorry state. The reds and golds had all drained away without the demon to sustain them, it was probably a testament to Connor’s _own_ will that they’d held up and remained attached to the circle library like this. He stepped over missing parts of the floor, ignored the black city’s image as it hovered through the warped windows.

“Girl?” The demons he had scared away from her last time had supposedly looked like their mother, and that meant the demon had known her name. If he wanted to avoid scaring her quite as badly as he had last time, then he’d be better off not trying to approach her knowing more than a strange man she’d never met ought to. “Girl, where are you?” There was always the good chance that Rowan had not dreamed herself up into the same place, or better yet: that she wasn’t even asleep.

No. She was asleep. He didn’t know how he came to that conclusion, but it felt right.

“Girl!”

Ah- a flutter in the Fade, something self-aware and chased off by his presence, but not far.

Connor made himself remain calm, taking a deep breath in response to his own thoughts. If he could project himself outward, then that would…

_I am a human man wearing the blue and silver of a Grey Warden- have you ever seen them in Denerim? My hair is auburn and hangs long around my face, it is straight and the same colour as good horse skin leather. I carry a staff of silverite with a green crystal clutched in the cage at its head. My eyes are grey like your father’s and I am as tall as he is, but my face is marred with pale, shining scars. If you approach me I will not harm you, I am as much a prisoner of this place as you are, and I will do what I can to protect you._

Because Maker Guide Him, she was just a _child_ …

There was the soft, delicate sound of someone crying. The high flute of distress sounded several times in the dead air of the dream, coaxing him further along until finally the shambled corridor came to a garden, and here he had to stop. He knew this place distinctly, with its beds of lavender, its tall, winding, twisted rowan tree: green leaves and beads of bright red berries. It was winter beyond them but here in the dream, in their mother’s garden, it was still a short hinterland spring. There were the scattered pieces of a tea-set on the bench by the tree, a table with only two of its legs on the ground hosting a platter of delicate sandwiches and sugar cookies. Here and there amongst the beds of flowers there was a discarded book of poetry, a forgotten history of something for the tutors to review, the blunt length of a wooden sword and practice knife.

It struck him how hard it was to try and enter the garden, the site of so many childhood mornings and afternoons. When Connor had been a boy the tree in the garden’s tree had been an homage to his late aunt, now, it quite clearly belonged to…

“Is this the place where your dreams always start, little dreamer?” Maker, was this… really her?

She was hardly present in the Fade. Honestly all Connor could see was a white, evanescent light hovering at the base of the rowan tree. It had floating centres of energy to it and a form that was as mist and cobwebs twined together might look like. She was airy, barely realized, and although her attention was drawn over by his voice it was impossible to say a distinct thing about her. He felt her fear but it wasn’t the same paralyzing screams from last time, instead it felt more like the steady alarm that a young child _ought_ to have around an unfamiliar, clearly armed stranger suddenly appearing in her mother’s garden. There was just enough curiosity in her to keep the fear from causing an outburst, and Connor half-heard something from her spirit that his mind understood as a question: _‘Who are you, serrah?_ ’

“Well that will hardly do,” Connor said to her, ignoring the question and coming a bit closer before taking a knee. The garden was old, the ground peppered with sunken stone bricks and plenty of sharp wild grasses and stalks sticking through. He had to take his staff and set it gently on the ground next to him, but she was only confused, not scared by his actions. “If we’re to speak in this place, then you’ll need to focus on getting your voice back first.”

 _‘But I can speak just fine, can’t you hear me?’_ the little girl asked, and despite his understanding, Connor shook his head no.

“I hear you just as well as if you’d stuck your head in a bucket of water and started humming.” A trill of scandal sounded from under the tree, the perfect picture of an offended young miss. “You’re not awake, little dreamer, things don’t work the same way in the Fade.”

‘ _Of course I’m awake, serrah, and when my mother comes and finds you here she’ll be very cross with you for trespassing.’_

“Are you certain this isn’t a dream instead?” Connor asked.

_‘Completely certain, serrah.’_

“Then why is the garden blooming when you went to sleep to freezing rain and winter darkness?” The girl took a pause and did not answer him, so he continued. “Do you remember walking out here in the first place? Who did you pass on the way here from your room?” She could not remember because it had not happened like that. It was winter, the garden was full of rain and hinterland snow, she had closed her eyes in her bed and opened them to find herself here.

 _‘I don’t get it._ ’

“You’re becoming a mage, girl.” He explained, still calm and on one knee in front of her. “Mages have to deal with what’s called _lucid dreaming_ , it means our mind stays awake and our spirits roam this mirror world _knowing_ everything we encounter is just a dream.”

 _‘This is a dream..?_ ’

“Everything here except you and I is an illusion carved from what’s known as the Fade.”

 _‘But it doesn’t feel like a dream,_ ’

“Because you’re not used to it yet.” Connor was willing to leave it at that and let her come up with something to say, but felt a sudden nag that would not be put aside. “I can help you put an end to the nightmares, but only if you listen to me and try your hardest to do as I say.”

_‘Why should I listen to you? Mother will be here-’_

“If you want to see your mother then you have to wake up, girl. That should be easy enough for you to do, and if you’re not sure how: I can tell you.” Unless, in an attempt to help her sleep through her nightmares they’d begun giving her a _special tea_ curtesy of the Antivan Crows… but no, Connor had to hold out even the smallest, barest hope that her parents would not be as cruel to their daughter as they had been to him. “I just need two promises from you first.”

_‘What if I don’t want to? Mother says not to trust people I don’t know, and father tells me men in armour have no business speaking to me until I become as tall as his shoulder.’_

“Then I applaud your good instincts,” he said, and was surprised how truthfully he meant it. “The first and most important promise ties in to that, actually. I want you to promise me, little dreamer, that you will never, _ever_ agree to let anyone see the world through your eyes. If anyone ever offers you something you desire, something you need, or anything you simply _want_ , but the price is that they use you to escape a dream like this? That they want to take your magic away and use it for themselves? Please, little dreamer, promise me: you will always say no.”

Rowan watched him but wasn’t as quiet as she might have been had she known how to control her own thoughts, how to distinguish between what she was thinking and what she was saying while stuck in the Fade.

_‘I will always say no?’_

“You will _always_ say no,” he emphasized. “Even if your mother or father, or your uncle Teagan come to you in great pain, begging you to help them by letting them hide inside your soul, you _must_ say no. If someone you love may be dying but the one who offers to help you asks you to let them use your eyes to see further, you must say no. Even if it’s me, even if you believe with all your heart that it’s me telling you I just need to peer into your mind for a few moments for some reason: say no, and then for good measure you should hit me with something right after.”

_‘But why?’_

“Because mages have no reason to venture into other people’s minds, and anyone who isn’t a mage doesn’t have that power anyways. The only ones who will ever ask to tether themselves to you are demons, girl, and you must _always say no_ when they ask you. Can you promise me that?”

She considered him a curious thing, he could feel her wonder and watch it pass as a gentle light hovering where a head should be, the folds and twists of smoke that almost outlined a child’s body regarded him, turning his words over like wooden toys.

 _‘I promise to always say no._ ’ She agreed, and Connor breathed a sigh of relief to show her how much that encouraged him. _‘What is the second promise?’_

“It really is just a promise,” he told her, and he felt a nag of guilt but shook it off, disregarded it. He needed this promise or else he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. “Please, I’m asking you for this only because I need it. Please, little dreamer: don’t tell _anyone_ you saw me here.”

‘ _In my mother’s garden?’_

“In your dream,” Connor corrected. “Please, it _must_ remain a secret between you and I- you cannot tell your mother that you met a Grey Warden in your dreams. You cannot tell her or your father or uncle or anyone else what I looked like either. Please make this promise to me, little dreamer, not because it will hurt you if you tell someone, but because it will hurt _me_.”

‘ _But aren’t you just a dream like everything else?’_

“No. I’m a dreamer, just like you are. I’m here in Redcliffe castle and I’m fast asleep.” She missed the point and fell into her own curiosity, chattering to him with a ribbon of half-formed words:

 _‘Are you a wizard, serrah? Mother tells me there were once many magic users in the castle a few years ago. They sent me to Denerim for so long that mother’s garden became overrun with weeds and grasses, all so I wouldn’t see them, or they wouldn’t see me. Mother said the mages would turn the Maker’s gaze from me and hurt me because I was too small…’_ And then her excitement became crushed by a sad, guilty tone _. ‘But then… then my dreams began to change and… and mother began to cry so often, and father would thunder and shout- and it was all my fault, it **is** my fault…’_

“It is not.” He made sure his voice was firm this time. “Magic is in your blood, Rowan. If people only became mages by coming into contact with other sorcerers, then no one would ever become one in the first place- but that’s a lesson for another time. Will you promise not to speak of me to anyone else in the castle?”

 _‘I promise._ ’ Thank the _Maker-_ but then she interrupted herself. _‘What about my teacher? And how do you know my name?’_

“You claim to be the Arlessa’s daughter, no? That makes you Lady Rowan of Redcliffe.” He smoothly and quickly covered up his slip. “And didn’t you just promise me not to tell anyone?”

 _‘But the teacher is a powerful mage from Cumberland!_ ’ The girl’s spirit argued, pleading with an earnest whine. ‘ _He’s a mage with flowing golden robes who can pull things apart with his mind! Mother says he was chosen specifically to teach me magic, he’ll know if I’m lying! He’ll find out and then he’ll turn me into a toad, all because you made me promise not to tell him anything!’_

“Girl, _calm down_ ,” Connor hushed, showing his palm and finally adjusting how he was kneeling on the ground. He doubted any demons would come skulking through the Fade and land upon them, and even if they did it would be no difficult task to stand again. His body was in a dire situation, his mind, for now anyways, was well. Connor made himself sit with one knee up on the garden ground, hooking his arm over his leg, weight braced on his other hand. The stab wound in his shoulder had not transferred: he wouldn’t let it. “I’m surprised to hear anything about a College mage coming to Redcliffe.” That would be the rank if his robes were supposed to be golden. Apprentices had worn blue, mages had worn red, enchanters gold, and senior enchanters in green. Each rank had born specific marks and symbols and accessories depending on seniority and specialization, but Connor had been disowned by his family by threatening to take Rowan to the College, how in the Maker’s name had-? Or maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe Connor already _did_. “Have they told you your teacher’s name yet?”

‘ _He’s an enchanter,’_ the meaning was harder to pick apart this time, like there were now flies buzzing high and droning around the bucket of water she had her voice filtering through. ‘ _I don’t remember his name.’_

“I… think I know who it is,” Connor answered slowly, painfully… “And, if I’m right… he won’t be upset with you, and even if I’m wrong: he won’t turn you into a toad because there’s no such spell for that.”

 _‘And what if you’re wrong?’_ He shrugged at her.

“I don’t know, ask your teacher.”

 _‘I will!_ ’ he didn’t mean to smile at that, but the outburst felt so earnest that Connor had to let himself enjoy it a little bit.

“Shall I show you how to wake up now?” His little sister’s spirit said yes to him, and Connor carried himself to his feet, instructing the formless light to do the same. It worked better than he expected it to: the light parted like limbs, the centre of it rising. She didn’t know he couldn’t see her, she simply was as she was as she was in the Fade. “I want you to pick three things that are not as they should be. Go quickly.”

She claimed everything was as it should be. When Connor tried to coax her towards, say, the black streak of a city cut across the yellow sky, she marvelled at clouds and didn’t seem to understand that the sky was _absolutely not as it should be_. He couldn’t remember far enough back to his own time at the Circle- how long had this lesson taken? How many sessions? There were special runes and glyphs one could use on the sleeping to make sure they all entered the Fade in the same place, allowing important lessons in how to survive and manage the Fade under close instruction. For every generation of Circle Mage prior to Connor’s own, these lessons in the early years had never been emphasized as crucial to the Harrowing. Connor himself had only been told the day before his own initiation.

“You have to see what’s wrong and then just- _wake up!_ ” But just because Connor had been taught didn’t suddenly mean he knew how to teach.

 _‘I can’t! Nothing’s wrong here._ _Just you! You’re the only thing that shouldn’t **be** here!_ ’

“Your table is floating half off the ground,” he said, pointing out the problem. “You _know_ it’s the middle of a winter storm but this garden is in full spring bloom,” there was a strong sense of discomfort coming from her now, but that was supposed to be good- wasn’t it? “A Grey Warden is standing in your mother’s garden, and no, the sky is not cloudy and blue: it’s _yellow_ with a giant _black city_ floating in the middle of it! _Wake up!_ ”

Rowan gasped and was not there. She didn’t pop or flare up or make any noise, but one moment her ghostly half-shape was there, and the next she was completely gone. She was awake.

He shouldn’t have raised his voice like that, it was horribly mean of him. He decided he would apologize to her tomorrow night, or whenever he found her in the Fade again. Regardless of what horrors and atrocities were happening _outside_ the Fade, on this side of the Veil there were far too many things for Rowan Guerrin to be afraid of to go adding his stupid arse to the list.

Taking his staff between his hands, he twisted the grip for a little bit, gathering his thoughts. If he used the books in the Fade’s rendition of Kinloch Hold he might remember his lessons a bit better and find something worth telling her, a way to break down skills that had become second nature to him over the years. Find three peculiarities and- and what? There had been a step before simply waking up- clap your hands, maybe? Because sound felt strange. Or maybe it had been hop up and down, because distance and height were things the Fade struggled to cope with. He couldn’t remember… he’d _have_ to remember.

First thing’s first, however: he had to find the source of that new presence that… oh.

_‘…You didn’t tell me your name.’_

“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” Connor marvelled, staring at the ghostly white nothingness that was Rowan’s spirit.

 _‘I drank a bit of water and opened the window to feel the snow outside. If this garden is still blooming, am I dreaming?’_ Yes she was. It was good of her to recognize that- and for him to recognize the swelling curiosity that was resting heavy over the low undertone of fear. ‘ _What’s your name, serrah?’_

Oh- um… Honestly, the less she knew the less she would be able to accidentally tell someone. Connor walked up closer to her, staff in hand, and looked down at the evanescent light of the young mage. She knew where she was in relation to him and that was how she kept from floating about like actual nothingness. She also knew she was looking at him so for a moment here and there Connor could almost see her eyes- but she wasn’t thinking about her face, and so he couldn’t see it.

“You may call me Warden, little dreamer.”

Connor couldn’t see it, but she smiled.


	27. An Accord

However long they had before Rowan woke up, Connor was curious and annoyed that she vanished without ever properly manifesting in the Fade. He only had a rough estimate of what she looked like by the end: long, dark, tangled hair, grey Guerrin eyes, and a child’s lithe form. She didn’t know her nose and cheeks or the other lines of her face well enough to recreate them on command, but she’d taken some delight in putting herself in a white frock and repeatedly changing the colour of it once she realized it was possible.

If Connor asked her to touch something then Rowan’s focus would sharpen on her hands, but they’d been in the middle of Connor telling her no: she was nearly eleven there was no reason for her to hover near his waist. She must have been taller than that!

But then she’d vanished. One moment there and then suddenly not, a powerful effect of the Fade.

Connor awoke shortly after that, and he felt cold and frail again. Hot embrium tea, made from the raw red petals, eased him comfortably down until he could accept a bowl of much needed food. He’d been restored to the bed after falling asleep again on the cot last night, and was well enough after the dose of embrium to sit up on his own without needing the pillows behind him. There was daylight at the room’s solitary window.

“The longer we enjoy each other’s company, the less I wish to consider ever taking another contract involving Grey Wardens.” Connor ate his breakfast under the usual looming oversight of his Antivan captor. He was presented with two runny eggs sitting half-cooked in a fish broth, chunks of meat mingling with boiled grains and onions. Connor wasn’t hungry until he started eating, and then quickly devoured the portion. “You have lost a concerning amount of weight by subsisting on only broth and water. Normal men would still be fine, but for some reason _you…”_ The crow seemed annoyed with him, good. Connor was happy to hear that needle of frustration threading through his words.

“You should see how much a Grey Warden company can eat after a day out fighting.” Connor was deeply pleased as he ate what he could with a spoon and then simply drank down the rest of his meal. “Is there more?” The assassin took the bowl with his lip inching upward in disgust.

“Give my regards to whomever at your fortress keeps such an army fed.” Connor was given a second portion, minus the eggs but including an additional chunk of fish. The grey flesh had a muddy taste and the meat lacked the satisfying girth of poultry or game, but Connor was hungry and he took every mouthful without complaint. He would not waste what he was given, not even the fish head and bones he at least took the time to chew down properly before swallowing. It was his first solid meal since the night of his capture, and it was also the first thing he was able to feed _himself_ without assistance.

“No more!” The Crow scolded when he held the bowl up expectantly and had it snatched away. “The last thing any of us wants is for you to vomit from the sudden abundance.”

“I only do that when I’m scared,” Connor quipped back. And then, because he was surprisingly well rested and now also fed: “I’d say good morning for once, but you don’t seem to be in your usual mood.”

“I am certain that the reason will poison this chipper attitude of yours as well.”

“How grim! Have you been _fired_?” The Crow’s sharp, short laugh told Connor just how little he appreciated the jest.

“At this point my dismissal would hardly bode well for you,” he answered in a tight voice. The older man then heaved a sigh and sank down into a simple chair placed between his work table and Connor’s bed. “I am to be tested on how well I can _control_ you today.” Oh, _marvelous._

“Sit, point, shake a paw?” Connor asked, and sure enough away went his almost-good mood.

“You are to repair the damage you inflicted on the Arlessa yesterday.” Connor gave a bitter huff at the presumption. Heal Lady Isolde’s face? Not likely.

“You’re no Templar,” Connor told him. “You can hardly expect to control my magic.”

“Very true,” the man agreed. “So unless I can persuade you with words this morning, I must resign myself to another, possibly far more _violent_ , repeat of yesterday’s outburst.”

“That seems a reasonable enough conclusion to draw.” Connor mimicked the ‘ _amicable’_ tone of the Crow’s words this time. He didn’t want to admit it, but the thought of reliving the fighting, humiliation, and withdrawal of yesterday terrified him. He was not here to cooperate, but if the Crow was annoyed with his orders then Connor would play to that however he could. “Go ahead, Crow, persuade me.” With words, Maker, let it be just with words.

The Crow kicked his legs out with a heavy, dramatic sigh, one hand stroking his thick beard. His boots and vambraces were fine Antivan leather, and wine-red velvet brocade decorated with gold wreaths spilled down his doublet. To keep the winter cold away his shoulders were draped with rich black bear fur, the front of the robe embroidered with gold threads where fur met fine wool. Not for the first time, Connor wondered what the man’s name was.

“First,” he announced in that rich voice of his, “we must establish the unflinching truth of the matter. You will heal the Arlessa and relieve the pain you dealt her in your anger yesterday. If you cannot accept this fact, Enchanter, then I may as well begin sharpening my knives for their preferred work.” There could be only one reason why that would be such a sticking point between them. Connor had spent many more hours trapped in the Fade than was healthy, but his few waking moments over the days had still let him listen and learn pieces of what made this grand scheme work.

“They won’t trust me to teach the Arlessa’s daughter magic until _you_ can prove that you can control me, and have my spells on command. They need to know that you can keep me from doing anything to harm her.” Connor showed his understanding of the situation, earning an approving smile from the crow. This _almost_ felt like one of his discussions with Suran about Soldier’s Peak, but there were still too many violent undertones for him to take his ease just yet. “The longer it takes for me to teach her, the longer you have to play nurse instead of killer and enjoy the lovely Hinterland cold.”

“Have your adventures with the Grey Wardens ever taken you as far as Antiva?” Connor considered the question before shaking his head no. “If you ever do, then you will understand my hesitation to linger so far south.”

“You would hate working for the Inquisition,” Connor entertained the topic: “Skyhold is north of us, but they’re called the _Frostback_ mountains for a reason. I was looking forward to a rainy Amaranthine winter so much heavy snow, so it looks like neither of us is getting what he wants and we both have Lady Isolde to thank for it.” The Crow chuckled low and deep in his throat, then spread his hands in a welcoming gesture.

“If we have an understanding about what _must_ be done, Enchanter, then shall we establish the finer points of compromise to bring us to an accord?”

“Shouldn’t I know the name of the man I’m making a deal with?” Connor asked, finally able to slip the question into one of their odd conversations. The Crow let himself appear surprised.

“Have I neglected such a basic curtesy?” Connor didn’t answer, just sat there expectantly to see if he would get his answer. He wasn’t surprised when the Crow lifted himself out of the chair and extended his hand politely for Connor to grasp. Why not? He accepted the shake. “My apologies, Enchanter Connor Dufort, I am Diego Valisti, Fifth Talon of the Antivan Crows.”

Connor didn’t have to know what _exactly_ a Talon was. He was the fifth for his entire order and that meant Diego Valisti was not someone to be crossed lightly.

“Make me an offer, Talon Valisti,” Connor made himself say as the older man settled back down in his chair. He couldn’t master the uneasy clench in his gut or the waver in his voice, but the words themselves were his own. “What is my cooperation worth to you?”

Valisti regarded him with the knowing smile that Connor was forever uncomfortable with, stroking his beard again before folding his arms.

“In exchange for healing the Arlessa, I can have my men recover your missing armour.” It was a surprising offer and to be honest Connor found it compelling. However, recovering the armour could have been as simple as finding it in a box, or as impossible as dredging the bottom of Lake Calenhad, or remaking it completely if the Arlessa had pulled his tunic and gauntlets to pieces. Furthermore, the pieces Connor wanted most were his ring, dagger, and pendant. If he asked for armour but was hoping for specific small, easily misplaced parts of his gear, then he would probably just get enough to satisfy the agreement but not himself. Moreover…

“And how does that help me today, with the Arlessa’s visit looming?” If they really had no idea what had happened to his belongings then it could take them days or weeks to come up with results. And what would he do with the armour after that? Keep the pieces balled up under the bed, waiting for a chance to escape on his own from a Talon and three Crows? Was he going to throw lightning from one hand while sticking his head through the top of his tunic? There were better ways to die than with one glove missing and his boots half on.

“Very well, what is your asking price, Enchanter?” Valisti asked, and Connor went with what felt petty but right.

“That you will _stop calling me that_.” Even if it was small, and foolish, and made no real difference in what was happening to him, Connor couldn’t help himself or amend the demand. “My surname is not _Dufort_ , my title is not Enchanter. I am a mage and apothecary of Vigil’s Keep, and I am a Corporal in the ranks of the Grey Wardens. Call me what I am, or go and sharpen your knives.”

“If I change your manner of address, you will heal Arlessa Isolde without incident?” The Talon questioned him, chasing the deal.

“Yes.” He agreed, because the exchange was almost a fair one. For the embarrassment of bending his magic to aid his mother, Connor would get his damned name back. “And if your men agree to find my armour, then I’ll leave no scars or flaws behind on her.”

“So we have an accord.” Talon Valisti stood and extended his hand to Connor again. “A verbal contract between House Valisti and Connor, Grey Warden of Vigil’s Keep. In exchange for your proper spoken rank you will provide healing services to the Arlessa upon request.”

“Upon _your_ request, not hers.” The difference? Nothing but pure spite at this point. “And my armour?”

“House Valisti would undertake the task of finding and recovering the Grey Warden’s armour and marks of rank- a pendant?” Yes, cast of silverite with a glass bead filled with blood. His bloodstone signet ring marked with the Circle’s halo and the College’s burning hand. The knife was too plain for Connor to reasonably expect them to find, but the ring and the oath. He wanted them. “Valisti’s agents will recover your arms on the promised delivery of superior healing and restoration magics dealt to the Arlessa of Denerim. Do we have an accord, Warden?” His hand was still out, and Connor took it.

“Yes, Talon Valisti. We have an accord.” Connor shook hands with the Antivan Crow responsible for ‘ _controlling_ ’ him here at Redcliffe. It should have felt more reckless and foolhardy than the emotion Connor was actually left with. The satisfaction would not give in and fade away to shame or dread. If spiteful deals with Crows were the only way he could trick himself into feeling like he had agency again, then Maker Take Him, Connor would make the deals.

With the immediate issue settled, Talon Valisti regained his typical good cheer. Connor was aided as he walked around the room several times. He felt stronger and better balanced today than last night, avoiding any falls and spending less time teetering back and forth. The room had a mirror and Connor grumbled when he saw the thickening tangle of his growing beard. It was thicker along his jaws than down his cheeks, crawling around his mouth and generally unpleasant. Even the ship from Orlais had let him keep soap and a knife to care for himself with, but Valisti just laughed at the suggestion of similar freedoms here and was told _‘You should have thought of that before taking my hand, Warden.’_ Fine. Connor was too pleased by the acknowledging title to carry on and gripe too hard about the beard. There was one comment he couldn’t pass up however.

“ _He_ gets a razor and his only job is to stand quietly in the corner,” Connor gestured to the Crow positioned permanently to the left of his bed. The assassin betrayed an uncomfortable look at Connor and another for his master as he was mentioned. Unlike Diego, the lower Valisti wore supple leather armour enforced in several places with plates and slats of fine metal. It was quality armour with good wool and fine edging, so henchman was probably not the word for him. Connor didn’t see any communication pass between assassin and talon, but the Antivan lifted one hand and tugged at the cowl of his dark wool hood, revealing one long, slender elven ear. “Oh. Well thanks for making me look stupid.” Elves didn’t need to shave, Zevran and Oghren had argued at length about whether that was a benefit or a detriment on the road from Skyhold to West Hill a lifetime ago.

The elven Crow was amused but utterly silent as Connor was walked a bit further and then settled down not in bed, but at last in a chair. It felt good to remain properly upright, the reading chair boasting supple leather and cushions for his back and sore shoulder. A blanket was draped over his legs to keep his bare feet warm and the bonds around his ankles from being visible. He was across the room from the door out into the hall, and could hear the boots stomping towards them through the open portal long before the Knights appeared.

There were two of them in their plate armour and closed helmets, judging by the ranks marked on their vambraces neither of them was Ser Perth and Connor was thankful for that fact: he was sorely tempted to amend his pledge of _‘I can use magic on the Crows’_ to read, _‘I can use magic on the Crows and the Knights of Redcliffe._ ’ He had a very bad idea bubbling up in his mind, and without raising the taint he was quite certain he would go through with it.

“Now see here, Mage!” The first man started in on him, and oh no, Connor wasn’t going to be spoken to like that, it just made his bad idea sound irresistible. With a clench and pull of his fingers Connor stretched a crackling, tightly woven web of lightning down his arm. The knights both responded with alarm, but as soon as Connor saw Talon Valisti he clenched is hand and strangled the spell.

He looked at Valisti- no, stared. He made his eyes wide, drew his uninjured shoulder up and then cradled his wounded one with his hand, made himself look scared. Redcliffe wanted him under control? Better to just act the part than wait for weeks of torment to make it a reality. If Connor was going to be controlled today, then it would be because he’d given his word and received something back in exchange. He twisted his shoulders as much as he could without causing his shoulder to ache and stayed with his eyes staring at the Crow.

“Easy, my good men.” Talon Valisti gave an easy nod of understanding before sweeping forward to stand just between the knights and Connor’s chair. “As I told your lady last night, it is still early to consider him wholly under my control- but he knows his place now. Shall we carry on with this exposition, or let the matter rest?”

“If he lashes out like that again, I’ll run him through.” The other knight threatened, and Connor heard Valisti click his tongue.

“No, you will not,” he pronounced in his deep voice. “A mage’s threats are no different from a naked blade or barking dog: harmless unless directed.” That was quite the forgiving view of magic but Connor felt no need to speak up or contradict it. “Is the Arlessa coming, or has she changed her mind?”

The knights wanted him to light a candle on request: Connor refused. They told him to heal his own shoulder: and while certainly tempted, on principle Connor refused. His magic was his own and he would not bend his will any further than was already agreed. Valisiti didn’t try to manipulate the _‘upon request’_ aspect of their agreement to make Connor do anything either, he simply repeated his question after each refused task about whether or not the Arlessa was coming.

“I was not instructed to bring a court magician to heel, Ser Knights.” They were irritating him, and Connor was not under the impression that the Talon was used to being outright ignored by simple knights. “If it is parlour tricks you expect then go down to the village. If the Arlessa is not coming and he is not to give lessons to the girl, then you will leave and allow me to continue my work.”

“You’ll shut your mouth, fox.” The first Knight boldly and foolishly stated, allowing Connor to feel the three dormant Crows in the room each ready a weapon in response. There was no need for Connor to reach for his magic again. “This _mage_ destroyed Redcliffe once already, I’m not about to trust him!”

“Your trust is not required, your obedience is,” the Talon stated in a truly bored voice. “If I say the mage is ready then he is ready. If the Arlessa doubts the impact of her gold or the quality of my work, then let her wait a few days more. If she desires to regain the use of her face, then let her come and see the results she has paid for. Begone, you bore me.”

The Knights did not leave willingly until one of them drew his hand back and found his sword missing, gawking inside his helmet at the fact that he had no sword, scabbard, knife, or belt for that matter. The other turned to his companion and Connor saw one of the living shadows lifting that one’s blade in the same silent, half-seen manner. The Crow by the door cleared their throat under their dark black hood, and held up the first missing sword as emphasis on why they should leave.

The elven Crow Connor had seen before made no sound until after the knight’s left, and even then all Connor heard was the stolen knife slide in and out of its sheathe a few times to admire the edge. Three assassins against two knights would have been disgustingly one-sided.

“I’m going to heal my shoulder.” Connor said, and the Talon watched him for a few moments, silent, as Connor reached for his magic and…

He reached and found the scent of lavender from petals strewn between folded silk, and the scent made him recoil. Connor sat perfectly still for a moment, no light near him save the window and the fire. He tried again.

The smooth sensation of freshwater pearls passing under his fingertips, the warmth of his mother’s arm around hi-

The spell frayed with his focus and Connor’s alarm was pitifully obvious to the killers around him.

“Do not play at distress now, Warden,” the Talon warned him. “You act out fear quite well, but your pretending is not always appreciated.”

“Noted…” Connor murmured, and with his right hand open in front of him he tried a different approach.

The central mark of healing, the radial marks of restoration, the interlocking circles of pain relief and ease, the overlaying angles and lines of peace and rest. He could make the marks form and hang in the air beyond the span of his palm, but when he tried to eek the warmth from his chest out through the shimmering spell to make it _work…_

The scent of his mother’s clothes revolted him, made his insides twist.

The memory of having her close to him brought anxiety and anger charging against his ribs. 

“Warden,” there was a warning in there.

“I’m trying to think.”

“Of what exactly?”

“Of how to anchor a spell to a new memory.” No, no, no, no, he couldn’t lose this skill now. Connor could not afford to forget this ability now. He was a healer, he was a helper, he was aid and medic and safeguard. The cornerstone of everything he did for the Grey Wardens could _not_ come unbound with the betrayal of his mother against him, he couldn’t let it happen. He knew how to heal, it was everything he was, it was who he’d made himself out to be.

It had always been two sensations: a scent and a touch. Think of something else. Think of something else _now_ before the Arlessa arrived for her promised and boasted healing. Think. _Think_.

A scent, a scent, a _good_ smell, something _good_ that made him think of calm and warm and peace and kindness and goodness and everything just being right. A scent that would overpower blood and smoke and phlegm and that would be able to carry spells through from start to finish no matter how distressed or injured he was himself. Connor didn’t have to pick and make it be that scent forever and ever, he just needed one that would work _right now_ and it had to be- _to be…_

Wine. Light, sweet, dry and dusty at the back of his throat. Half a crown on one bottle of wine sipped and swallowed from the mouth of the cold glass on a late summer night. Wine from a caring hand to his and then passed over oil-smeared empty dishes, platters of thick succulent roast and braised potatoes and smoky gravy and magefire glowing purple and green and teal under the starry night. Emprise du Lion’s finest that had chased away the bitterness and the tears and the fear and the hurt and the _betrayal_ and-

Connor exhaled the dusty flavour of Genevieve’s favourite wine and the sweetness flowed out and down, spreading through his bones and bypassing the readied glyph completely to soak into the torn muscle and snapped tendon of his stabbed shoulder. The knife wound began to knit itself shut, and Connor let the white light fade to dusty stars as he brought his hand up and closed his eyes, massaging the old wound and pulling threads of kind blue light back between his fingers, twisting and tying them just right so fibers found their mates and veins folded neatly back around each other. The nick against his collar bone was sealed and the minor fever the embrium’s numbing, warming powers had hidden from him was quietly chased away, rushed deeper through his body where his insides would cleanse and deal with the problem in their own way.

He flexed as much of his shoulder as he could without releasing the spell, adjusting here and there to make sure all was well, and then tied off the weaving lights and let the magic fade. Thank the Maker, it _worked…_

One of the Crows took the sling off of him, Talon Valisti watching closely as Connor’s shirt was pulled aside and the bandages cut and taken away, elfroot discarded and the soft pink mark left at the meet between his shoulder and chest muscles was revealed. There was only a lingering hurt, and it wouldn’t scar.

“You’re going to explain what that was all about later.” Connor was too relieved by his own success to worry about the Talon’s threat. He didn’t have any time to celebrate the achievement however, not before _she_ arrived.

 _‘Don’t feel guilt, don’t feel guilt, don’t-_ ’ He did. Connor’s anger strangled itself and died as a sour black dredge in the pit of his stomach. He’d struck his mother, a woman in middle age, and in anger he had done far more damage than he’d had any right to. Arlessa Isolde’s chin, jaw, and a portion of her cheek were webbed with dark purple and brown bruises, she held her neck stiffly as a sign of pain and looked sleepless, dark circles aging her eyes and a deep sadness flooding through her as she entered the room. Her gaze lingered on the empty bed before finding him in the chair, and she approached without acknowledging the Talon she’d hired to keep him here. She wordlessly extended both hands out to him, visibly on the brink of tears, and his heart _ached_ as she took his hands in hers…

It ached and it twisted, it felt swollen with pain and it was his fault and he’d done this. He’d made this happen. None of this should have happened. If he’d left the Grey Wardens at West Hill and come south to Redcliffe none of this would have happened.

And no, Connor would never have become a Grey Warden, and he never would have served Surana, and he wouldn’t have been in the Deep Roads to try and help the Hero of Ferelden. And no he wouldn’t have gone to Orlais and helped the Inquisition hold back the Darkspawn spilling in from the Approach, he would not have been there when a High Dragon tried to bring half the canyon wall down on him. Connor would not have reached Nathaniel before he went over the canyon ledge, or been able to stop the creature from closing its jaws with his staff so he could take out both its eyes with magic. And no, he wouldn’t have carved a real friendship out between himself and Hawke, and no he wouldn’t have learned to speak with both his hands and the old Orlesian words he’d half-remembered from his childhood. 

Jylan would still be with the Formari in Amaranthine and Connor would not have fallen in love and An’eth would not have joined the Wardens and Connor could keep listing all the things that would not have been the same. He couldn’t stop realizing everything that would be different and how much of it he _never_ wanted to change.

He’d stayed away from people who would rather hire _Crows_ to do horrible things to him than just be forthright about what was happening to their daughter. Connor had waited for over ten years to put his own life together after Redcliffe and now it was laying in shattered pieces at his feet, because of his family, and _their_ choices, not his. This was not _his fault_.

And yet somehow through all of that the Maker still had the _audacity_ to plant regret and guilt in his heart instead of letting anger or vengeance or hatred reign supreme. Andraste Guide Him, Connor _pitied_ her…

“ _I’m sorry, mother.”_ Connor whispered through locked jaws, tugging on her hands so she knelt, and speaking the sounds of a language that made her eyes birth sparkling tears and stare at him in surprise. He worked his hands free of her and drew on the warmth in his body to bring out the yearning need to relieve the pain around him. He spread his hands past her face without touching her, silvery blue light emanating from his palms and forming silky, soft threads that whispered through her skin and sought out the bruised skin, the wrenched muscles, the sore edges, the cracked bones. “ _I’m sorry that I’m not strong enough to hate you.”_

Her crying eyes widened with shock, but Connor’s magic slowly wound itself in place. He found the break along her jaw, the cracks riddling her teeth, leaking blood a day after the initial blow. A medic had tried to tend to her, she had likely refused most of it in favour of his magic instead.

“ _This should be fire.”_ He whispered in _her_ mother tongue. “ _It should be pain that ends your life. Because I would kill you, and they would kill me, and Rowan would never know why any of this happened. I would let the Maker cast me down for kin-slaying because by ending you I would prove without question that I was born from your poison, and how nothing that happened between Redcliffe and this moment was true to the vicious creature that I should have been.”_ His fingers cradled the crooked lines of her face, magic spinning and gently pouring to relieve pain as bones were drawn back into order, threads following his fingertips. She tried to shake her head, to move her lips, but he hushed her with a thumb against her mouth and continued his work, weaving his patterns and drawing a slow, steady flow from his heart to her flesh.

“ _I was happy.”_ He told her, because he just wanted it _said_. “ _I was loved, I was **in** love, but you don’t care. Not the people I helped, not the monsters I stopped, not the families I healed, **nothing** I had or I was or I held dear matters to you- but **I’m** the one who is sorry? Because I hit you? I pity you now because of that? You thrust a dagger through my mentor and poured poison down my lover’s throat and you disgrace my master and I **pity** you?” _ He could weave and tie off the magic of a dozen tiny threads of the spell, but Connor couldn’t untangle the mess of love and hatred knotted in his aching heart when he faced her. In the Fade he hated her, in his fevers he feared her, and now, in this moment, he pitied her.

 _“You don’t even know the joy I would have felt to know I had a little sister.”_ He whispered, sinking the last of the magic through her unblemished skin and drawing his hands away. _“You don’t know how quickly I would have run back to you during the war if I’d known she was waiting. You don’t know anything because you don’t care about **anything** but yourself, and I pity you. And I pity her, for being trapped with you. So send your precious child to me, mother, but don’t you ever dare to speak to me again.”_

“Connor-” She gasped and he looked away from her.

“Talon Valisti, I feel cold and wish to sleep.” He said, eyes closed and hands on the arms of his chair. She tried to pry his fingers off the supple leather but he resisted, he was strong enough to do that much.

“Connor! _Connor, my child, no, don’t say things like this-_ ” She howled in the same language he’d used to try and free himself from her. _“Connor! Look at me! Look at me right now!”_ No, he would not speak to her again, he shut out the sound of her language and it was easy to cast off the grammar, the syntax, the meaning. She was just babbling nonsense now.

“Arlessa, for his health I must ask you to leave.”

“ _This has nothing to do with you!”_

“Would you have him in withdrawal again!” Connor jumped when he heard Valisti raise his voice for the first time, and then in a calmer voice the Talon lied for him: “He is nearly there, see how pale he is? How he turns away?” She tried to say something but he walked right over her. “You demanded that we control him and he is controlled, his is enthralled to the herbs and without them he will suffer and scream as he did before. He has worked his magic twice in one day, something not done for a fortnight. Would you ask a man waylaid in bed for so long to rise and fight twice in the training yard? Stress him and my techniques will not save him, he will die.”

“No-”

“He has said and done more in this hour than he has since arriving at Redcliffe, we must leave him.”

“Connor-? _Connor!_ ”

“Come, your grace, I shall attend you.”

The Talon escorted his hysterical mother out of the room, and Connor opened his eyes when he heard the door latch. He had been missing for a fortnight: two weeks. He felt drained and heavy from his crown to his toes, defeated when he tried to push the blankets off his legs and felt a telltale chill starting to needle him. It had been hours since that tea…

Being alone in the room with three hidden Crows didn’t bother him as much as he knew it should have. What did surprise him however was the fact that one of them spoke to the other two. She used Antivan, of course, something Connor couldn’t speak and only knew maybe one or two swears in thanks to his limited experience working with Zevran. One of the others responded to her and it sounded like a question, and her answer back was too short to be complete: it hung in the air and was directed at the corner next to Connor.

The elven assassin, which might have been another misnomer because Connor had never seen the faces of the other two… but that was the one who let out a slow, agonized breath, muttered something reluctantly to his companions, and was immediately ribbed by them both again. The sentiment: ‘ _aw, c’mon!_ ’ was universal. The elf’s answer could only be a cuss, but a mild one.

Connor tried to stand and that was the Crow who hooked an arm under his and helped him up, giving him enough freedom to decide he wanted to walk back to the bed. And along the way Connor decided he also wanted a proper look at the Talon’s table… There was no point in snooping, but he felt defeated and just wanted to see what his blurry eyes could pick out. He didn’t even bother trying to be sneaky about it, he was dealing with Crows, he was about as subtle as they were sympathetic.

Embrium plants, most of them dried because they didn’t grow well in winter. Roots and leaves and petals all separated, various stages of breaking the plant down into powders, oils, and shreds. A mortar and pestle, several work knives, a small distiller, several round-bottom flasks used for heating and combining brews. The only thing Connor saw that he didn’t know the name of was… it must have been an Antivan herb. It was thin and grey, spindly and reminded him of bundles of tangled threads. It didn’t look like a root so maybe it was some kind of succulent- a desert plant? He didn’t know its name or what it was used for, and that concerned him. Looking at the table had been a mistake.

The Crow put him back to bed and Connor rolled onto his side, groggy and desperate to sleep and get away from everything around him. He wanted to feel warm and calm and wrapped up in something heavier than the blankets, wanted to forget what the rough linen over his skin and the itch of the wool quilts felt like. He needed the heat to come from inside and wash him away with the iron-rich aftertaste of powdered sleep mixed over a soft flame.

He wanted to forget being awake. Wanted to go back to the rotunda and its bookshelves and its libraries. Back to where he was still strong and himself and could use his magic and carry his belongings and fight off what was dangerous while cultivating something that was almost safe. He wanted to go to sleep.

_Let him sleep…_

Instead he just laid there, awake and miserable and growing steadily colder, heart beginning to pick up the pace looking for what was missing in his blood. He heard the Talon return and there were voices over his head, most of the words coming from the elf, ribbons and ribbons of words with no interjections and Connor had never heard _any_ of them speak before now but he didn’t understand a word of it. He just wanted sleep, he was cold, he was so cold.

“Grey Warden, do you want to wake up, or go to sleep?” Diego Valisti, Fifth Talon of the Antivan Crows asked him.

“ _Sleep_ ,” Connor rasped, and he forgot which language he spoke in. His fingers signed _‘please_ ’.

“Mattan says you are much too kind for your own good, Warden.”

“I’m cold, let me sleep.”

“It is brewing, be patient. I applaud your restraint if Mattan’s translation of your threats is accurate, but do you truly pity the woman who put you through this?”

 _“_ Let me _sleep…_ ” Respite, Connor needed _escape…_

“Slowly now, but all of it.” He didn’t obey, he didn’t care. Connor sat up under his own power but he was shaking, there was a warm hand on his back as he held the wooden cup in both hands and sucked the cloudy brew down as quickly as he could. The Talon scolded him, but there was no hot candle wax or knife in his back or twisted knot around his throat. He laid back down and curled over on his side, away from the table, gathering the blankets.

He vanished into the Fade and Blessed Andraste, Connor was _safe_.

* * *

 

With the Grey Warden asleep and the Knights too deaf to understand Antivan, the conversation was fast and brisk:

“Master Diego, I volunteer to-”

“After you just reminded me of how useful your Orlesian is, Mattan? Certainly not.” _Brasca._

“If it is between Stephano and I, Master Diego, I would prefer to stay.”

“Is that so?”

“Have you lost your mind, Anira? Stay in this stifling, claustrophobic little-?”

“Stay in the only room in this entire dog-smelling country that is actually _warm?_ Yes, if I have a choice. However, sending me out into that icy hell will encourage me to come back more quickly with my results. I won’t vanish in search of whores like _someone_ …”

“Run your mouth a little more, and we’ll see just who-”

“Children, children… Let us not fight. Stephano, I give you a day to search the castle. If you cannot find the armour then Anira will search the village. If she returns empty handed, Mattan will clean up your mess.”

“As _usual_.”

“ _Ugh_.”

“Don’t let him have the satisfaction, Stephano! Go! Find the stupid ring!”

And with that small snatch of entertainment, the Crows resumed their watch.


	28. The Enchanter

Rowan Guerrin was ten and a half years old. She curtseyed politely at the door, two Knights of Redcliffe flanking her much smaller form. She wore a long red tunic that covered her arms and was slit up the side so it could fall past her knees without hobbling her, the edges covered and surely sewn with fine leather, a tooled belt cinching her waist. Her dark hair was braided around over the top of her head and pinned behind her, soft brown shoes poked out from under her grey wool trousers. She held a simple leather folio with many rough paper pages inside it and hugged her arms around it, a stick of wood and charcoal clutched in one hand.

“Enchanter Dufort,” were the first words Connor’s little sister properly spoke to him, and they came very close to spoiling the moment. He gestured to the chair next to his, and the little girl came and sat down.

Due to the arrangement of apothercary’s supplies, the stale bedding, and what everyone around Connor called the _‘stifling’_ heat of his room, he’d learned today that there was still a world beyond the confines of that one chamber where he kept waking up. Redcliffe Castle was a proper keep with many levels and corridors. Connor had recognized the family wing immediately once he’d walked past the chamber door, realizing with muted terror that he was being kept at the end of the hall from his own childhood bedroom.

The castle library was much too far away for Connor to walk to, even with the gift of a cane Talon Valisti kept a sharp eye on while Connor leaned on it and tried not to lose his breath. He _was_ stronger, and he was allowed to eat better, and stay awake longer, but honestly at this point he would have preferred to stay in the Fade. He walked the short length of hall to a quiet reading room with windows that looked down into his mother’s snowy garden, and although he found the corridor and the chamber decidedly _cold_ , he was given a thick blanket to drape over his legs and another one to go around his shoulders as he took a chair by the newly lit fire.

Connor was also thankful for the blankets because they covered what he was wearing: a golden, _stolen_ , mage’s robe. It was the dark blue of an apprentice’s robe embroidered over and over again in overlapping arrays of magical designs, rendering it gold. Honestly, it was a low-ranking garment as far as the old Circle Hierarchy was concerned: the fabric was blue and the details were golden, the reverse would have made it a proper Enchanter’s robe. It might have been left behind by the mages when they left Redcliffe for Haven and then Skyhold, but more likely it had been pulled off the corpse of some poor sod who’d died during the war or the chaos of the Breach. Either way, it wasn’t Connor’s and he was disgusted by the fact that he had to wear it.

Had to, at least for today: anticipating his reaction the Talon had had the garment _sewn shut_ after dressing him in his sleep. Connor’s outrage hadn’t been communicable with words and Diego had only shrugged at him in that cavalier way that was so insulting. At least, after regaining the power of speech, Connor had said the right thing:

“This isn’t the armour you promised me.” And _that_ had taken the delight out of the Crow’s smile.

And now he was here, dressed like something he wasn’t, being called a name that wasn’t his, teaching a young girl magic.

He asked her if she knew what the Veil was, Rowan said no and so he had to explain it to her.

He asked her if she knew what the Fade was, Rowan said no and so he had to explain it to her.

He asked her if she knew what a lucid dream was, and this time Rowan paused and looked at him very strangely, then told him it was _‘a dream that isn’t a dream, because you’re sleeping but really you’re awake at the same time’._ Connor smiled in spite of himself, and then with an idle tilt of his head, he lifted one hand slowly towards her.

“I want to test something, may I see through your eyes for a moment?”

“No!” The girl yelped, startling herself and causing a clink of metal from the two knights still guarding the room. One of Valisti’s crows was in the study as well, but Connor had lost track of the assassin while waiting for Rowan to arrive. “I… I mean…”

“No, that was the correct answer,” Connor said, quick to stop doubt from creeping up on her. Doubt could kill her in the Fade. “Can you tell me why?”

“Um- because I don’t want you to, Enchanter.” That _name_ again, he-

“A fine reason, and arguably the best one,” he encouraged, but he wanted more than that. “Do you know the other two?” He almost asked her if she _remembered_ them, but that would have sounded strange to the men guarding them. Rowan squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, looking at him with her wide grey eyes, then off behind their chairs where the Crow must have been loitering, then back at him.

“Because I promised,” the little girl whispered, which was not the answer Connor expected. He took a breath, and:

“Do you speak your mother’s tongue, my lady?” He asked in a voice just as hushed as hers. The child looked at him and curled her pink lip in her mouth, then look over at the knights this time. She tried to be sneaky about it, but no child of ten years was ever half as stealthy as they liked to imagine.

“ _Yes, serrah,”_ she answered in Orlesian, _“but I only speak with my mother.”_

 _“That’s alright,”_ Connor answered softly. “ _But you made two promises, little dreamer, and mentioning the first one brings you very close to breaking the second._ ” Her eyes went wide as could be and Connor raised a quieting hand to keep her from opening her mouth with anything foolish to blurt out. “ _We are being watched, but never fear: they are not here for you.”_

Rowan twisted around in her chair again and looked at the knights, staring at them for a long moment before sitting properly again, looking lost at the fire with her book and etching stick in her hands. Connor showed his palm and indicated that she should give him the paper, which she did without question. He also summed up their previous topic with:

“The three reasons you always have to say no to someone asking to look inside of you are: because you don’t want them to, because no mage has any justifiable reason to do so, and because non-mages simply _cannot_. Anyone who does ask you to give in is a demon, and you need to either fight or escape from them.”

“How do I do that?”

“First, you need to know how to wake up when you find yourself dreaming. And in order to do that, you have to know you’re dreaming.” He scratched one word on the first page of the notebook, up in the top corner: he chose _warden_ , and handed the book back. “Pick a word that starts with the last letter I wrote.”

She gave him _notebook_ , he answered _kick_ , she said _kiss_ , his was _snake_ , then: _egg, game, elegant, tree, enormous, sad, delicate._

“Stop ending with e!” she complained, and Connor smiled again before asking her to read the list of words out loud. It was just a nonsense list, but he asked her to read them from top to bottom, bottom to top, to count and tell him how many there were, and which one was in the middle. “You’re not my grammar tutor,” she finally huffed at him with a spoiled pout.

“I’m not, but you can’t read when you’re dreaming,” he explained. “If you’re ever unsure of where you are, find a book and open it. If you can’t count the number of lines on the page, or read the words backwards or forwards, then you’re sleeping. Even a book written in Ander or Qunlat will have lines for you to try and count, or symbols that make up distinct words.”

“And if there are no books?”

“Ask your mother to give you a bright gold coin, and tomorrow I’ll show you what to do.” Honestly it didn’t have to be golden and it didn’t have to be a coin. Connor just wanted to see Lady Isolde give up a gold sovereign so Rowan could learn to recognize how differently simple objects behaved when dreaming. “And what will you do if between now and tomorrow, anyone asks to see the world through you?”

“I’ll tell them no.” Good girl.

The knights took Rowan away after that, and the Crow took Connor back to his room where he drank embrium, complained about the unwanted robe, and managed to stay awake until a proper hour for sleep.

He found Rowan in their mother’s garden, and the girl’s ghostly white spirit jumped about and hollered at him, yelling that he was her teacher! He was! The Warden and the Enchanter were the same person and why wasn’t she allowed to tell anyone and why was he wearing the blue here instead of the gold? And that staff and that armour and-

‘ _You look quite silly without a beard,_ ’ the child told him with unflappable innocence. She still couldn’t speak properly, but Connor was thinking of ways to correct that.

“I do not, and it’s unbearably itchy.” Was how he handled her comment, and then he gestured for her to follow him out of the garden. “Come along, lets see what you remember from this afternoon.”

He led her through the shambles of Redcliffe Castle and the wreckage startled and frightened her, but Connor was insistent that she come and they reached the ceiling-less expanse of the Circle’s library much to her awe and amazement.

“It didn’t look exactly like this; it’s just been so many years since I was there.” And then he explained to her that the library wasn’t real, he just expected it was a memory of his. “Go ahead, find a book.”

She marvelled and then grew increasingly frustrated that every book, no matter which one she chose, was blurry gibberish that she couldn’t see. Connor scolded her for throwing one but then had to be satisfied when she answered: _‘Why? They’re not real books at all!’_

“Fine, but don’t let me catch you throwing real ones like this.”

 _‘I want to play the word game again!’_ Hmm, writing in the Fade didn’t work much better than reading, but he entertained her anyways as they walked through the library and came to the gold and orange of Skyhold, Connor taking her along quickly simply because this wasn’t where he wanted to be.

“Butter,” he said.

_‘Rabbit.’_

“Tether,”

_‘Royal!’_

“Lamp,”

‘ _Piglet!’_

“Teapot,”

_‘Turtle,’_

“Do you remember this from our lesson?” He said, entering the rotunda.

_‘Do doesn’t start with an e!’_

“Yes, yes, now look up- what’s that?”

It was the Black City itself, and the awareness of it made Rowan stagger in the rancid yellow light. She became frightened as she finally realized the lack of land around them, the way the sky was forever and ever, above and below, between and under. She was terrified of falling, of the wind picking up and blowing her away.

“I’d be afraid too if I was nothing but a dusty little spirit.” She told him she was no such thing, “Put your boots on the ground then.”

Two small black boots materialized under her, they stomped and kicked with the memory of her grey trousers at the knee and down, the edge of her frock from last night brushed hands that vanished almost as quickly as they appeared.

“I’ve fallen plenty of times in the Fade,” He told her, leaning on his staff with both hands wrapped around the haft. “It’s not so scary once you will yourself to a safe landing.” She didn’t believe him. “Oh? Would you like me to demonstrate?”

_‘You cannot.’_

“I certainly can, I’ve done it before.”

_‘You cannot fly!’_

“I do not have to! I simply have to land.” Connor backed up towards one of the windows, the bookshelves rearranging as he told them to so he could approach one of the rotunda’s large windows. He was stopped by the panicked cry from the little girl accompanying him, and he felt certain those were her hands pulling and tugging on him not to go, not to do it. His jest had not been funny and that meant it wasn’t a joke after-all, he was only a cruel bastard.

“I’m sorry,” he was quick to apologize and to mean it, taking a knee and letting the shelves rumble back into place. “Hush now, little dreamer, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

 _‘Don’t leave me alone! Don’t go, don’t leave, don’t go away, don’t-’_ the words mixed wildly with hurting emotions and Connor tried to sooth her, sympathetic to the paralyzing fear that being in the Fade could bring. Connor had dreamed too many times of golden eyes and black horns to lose patience with her.

“It will be morning soon,” he promised her, and then felt cruel again because he had no way of knowing for sure when dawn would come. “You’ll be alright, just please, keep your promises to me.”

_‘I won’t let anyone in, no matter what. I won’t tell anyone I saw you in a dream.’_

“Atta girl, thank you…”

Rowan vanished some time later, and when Connor awoke he made a groggy request as he took the steeped embrium tea.

“I need a hammer…”

“A _what?_ ”

“A piece of heavy metal on a wooden haft, used for-”

“I know what the word is, _Warden_ , I am asking what in the Maker’s Sight you could possibly need one for.”

“Oh, _I_ don’t need it, your Crow can keep it with him so long as he does what I ask with it.” Diego Valisti was not impressed with him, or his second request: “And a mirror, if you can find one.”

“What magic is this?”

“Basic things, Talon.” He explained around a yawn, “What about that mirror on the wall there? That’s good enough.”

“Just don’t _smash it_.” Sadly, that was not Connor’s purpose.

“Have you found my belongings yet?” They had not.

He was allowed to wash himself- not _by_ himself, he had a Crow watching him and was thoroughly embarrassed by it, but warm water and soap were too good to pass up. He washed his hair, which was becoming much too long, and scrubbed his face where his beard was an unbearable weight and mess across his skin. Alas, they would not let him shave, and not even suggesting one of the Crows do the duty was enough to get them to cut his hair either. He had nothing to tie it back with until finally, with the distinct tone of someone annoyed with his pestering, the Talon growled out something in Antivan and one of the Crows approached Connor with a short cord of leather. It was too short to be used as a weapon, but with an earnest thanks Connor was able to gather his hair behind his head and finally bind it off his neck. How Warden Hestel managed to live and work with blonde hair that wove down her back was a blind mystery to Connor.

That brief encounter over his hair told Connor he was dealing with one male elven Crow, and one human female. Of the third he hadn’t seen at all, not until he appeared with a hammer and the woman vanished. Another human man.

Connor was left with no alternatives to the mage robe. Either he went to see Rowan in smallclothes, or he went wearing the stolen mage’s garb.

The baffled Crow carried the hammer and the mirror with him to the study, where Connor and Rowan sat and the girl produced a fat gold coin from the Arlessa’s pocket. Connor had the satisfaction of confusing every person in the room and scandalizing the Crow when he asked the man to beat the gold flat with the hammer.

“Have you lost your _sodding mind?_ ” The Crow balked at him, and Connor couldn’t pass up the opportunity to scold him for language in front of Rowan. The answer was a slew of Antivan that had to be vulgar.

“It’s not your gold, it’s the Arlessa’s.” Connor quipped. “If you’re so offended then let me do it.”

“Hah! I would sooner starve. Noble fools and their foolish games. Fine, Enchaa-aa… _fine!_ ” Connor’s easy smile vanished when the Crow nearly called him that forbidden title, and the Crow took the coin and the hammer to the far side of the room where he pounded it out flat, beating King Alistair’s face off one side and leaving only a rude imprint of the Ferelden coat of arms on the other. He brought back the palm-sized disk of gold and Connor gave him a brilliant smile which was returned with a disgusted scowl.

“I want you to keep this with you at all times, from now on, until you no longer need it.” Connor gave the disk to Rowan, who held it in her palm and stroked her fingertips over the abused gold. He told her to take it into the light of the window, then had the curtains drawn shut so she could see it by firelight, both sides. She was to worry it through her fingers for the rest of their time together and he implied she should keep doing so whenever she had idle hands. “A token will help you in the Fade.”

“Do you have one, Enchanter?” She asked, and Connor pursed his lips for a moment.

“Every Apprentice at the Ferelden Circle was given something like this. For most of us it was a pendant with the chantry sunburst on it, something for us to focus on.” Connor had been forced to scalp his for enough coppers to feed himself on the way to Redcliffe, he couldn’t say he really missed the amulet. “To be honest I never really needed mine. The Fade’s always been very distinct for me.” For… very good reasons, honestly.

They spent the rest of that day’s session with Connor holding the mirror up and getting Rowan to study her own face. What her nose looked like, how her hands felt, where her eyes were, how her lips moved. They played the word game again until they had a long list, and Connor was set on making sure she grew annoyed with every single one of them by making her repeat them over and over again in the mirror.

“Pay attention to how it feels in your mouth: nug, _nnnnnug_. I’m as bored as you are, come on.”

The next day it was the Talon who accompanied Connor to the lesson, and Rowan was more patient with the boring hour of repetitive motions today than she had been with the mirror yesterday: he’d almost gotten her to hold her face properly in a mirror while they both dreamt in the Fade, and her coin had helped her understand that if it hung suspended in mid-air when she dropped it, she was probably dreaming.

“But this not _magic_ …” She complained, standing for as long as she could on one foot, then alternating to the other, arms held wide and her bottom lip sticking out. “Shouldn’t I be learning to conjure a fire ball, or shooting lightning?”

“Soldiers don’t start off by rushing into battle: they get to run five miles a day and do drills into the evening.” Connor recalled this knowledge fondly, which was very strange considering how much he’d hated basic Warden training. “Mages learn how to tell their waking hours from sleeping ones.”

“What if I don’t want to dream? Isn’t there a way to just _not?_ ”

“There is, but it’ll take you some time to master it. For now, I’d rather you know how to wake up, and you can’t wake up if you don’t know you’re asleep.”

“Maybe I don’t even have magic and we’re just wasting everyone’s time.” That was an interesting thing for her to say. “Maybe I can just go back to learning swordplay instead.” Connor considered this for a long moment, watching Rowan wobble and lose her balance, her legs sore from being made to repeat the exercise over and over again. Connor at least had had a training yard and peers for these sorts of lessons at the Circle, but he’d also had to go out there with the other Apprentices be it rain or shine.

“Give me your hand,” he asked, holding his out for her. Rowan came over with a grumble and laid her hand down over his palm, allowing Connor to turn it over so her hand was facing up. With his free hand, Connor took a finger and traced a straight line across the heel of her palm. “This is the land,” he explained, tracing a triangle over the line so it’s base and the land were parallel. “And the sky, pointing up your longest finger. I want you to hold that image in your mind.”

He let go of her hand and Rowan stared at the mark, then broke her focus and looked at him instead.

“It isn’t doing anything.”

“Try again, and this time I want you to breathe deeply, feel your heart pumping your blood, feel the energy moving from your chest, through your ribs, over your shoulder, down you arm…” He traced the mark again, speaking slowly as she focused on the memory of the lines on her skin. “Through your wrist, pushing between the bones, let it-”

A tiny hair of white lightning crackled from Rowan’s wrist to her fingertip and the girl shrieked in surprise, jumping away from him and shaking her hand frantically. There was no mark left on her skin and her small chest was heaving up and down, a wild look flying through her dizzy grey eyes.

“That- that- it-”

“That was you,”

“But it-!”

“And that’s why you must _never_ let anyone enter your mind, Rowan.” Connor cautioned her, bringing back the same warning because it was _crucial._ He was no proper teacher for her, she _had_ to know how to defend herself from the prying fingers of demons if she was going to survive long enough to reach the College of Enchanters. “Because anyone who you let inside of you is going to take _that_ power and do _terrible_ things with it. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want it!” She shouted, and Connor could understand that: he remembered Apprentices who’d shouted the same thing, he remembered being one of them. “That- it felt like- no! I don’t want it! Take it away!”

“I can’t, Rowan, no one can.”

“You just said someone could!”

“Demons in the Fade who have to _kill_ you to take it!” It was wrong of Connor to raise his voice. He didn’t do it to shout at her, only to be heard over her own panic.

“ _I don’t want it!_ ” She screamed this time, “I don’t want it! The Maker didn’t give it to me! _I don’t want it!”_ Her voice went shrill and the knights were hurrying into the room from their doorway post. “I don’t want the nightmares anymore! I don’t want to stay in my room all the time! I want to go back outside and I want to be a _knight_ and I want to go to _Denerim_ with mother! I want to go swimming in the lake and I want to go hunting with father- _I don’t want to be a mage! I DON’T WANT TO BE A MAGE!”_

One of the knights took Rowan away quickly, the other had his sword half-drawn before the fine, needle-like point of a rapier threaded through one of his helmet’s eyes and out the other. The man was stopped with a shocked gasp, and he followed the pressure of the fine, sharp Antivan steel as it edged him back two steps, tilting his head up awkwardly.

“The girl is _understandably_ upset, Ser Knight,” Connor had never even known the Talon carried a sword, nevermind one that would snap like a wire if pressed and yet pierced so easily through the plate armour’s few weaknesses. “That is _not_ her instructor’s error. You will attend to her, no? The alternative will not suit you.”

The knight lifted his hands clear of his weapons, and with the rasp of metal and a quick hiss of pain the armoured man turned right on his heel and left the room just barely below a run. Connor wished he could have laughed at it, but his sister’s hysterical voice was still ringing in his ears.

There was the deliberate motion of Valisti wiping the edge of his thin sword clean with the supple leather of his black vambrace, the blade had probably bitten the bridge of the man’s nose, he hadn’t been distressed enough to have lost an eye. Wordlessly, the Crow stowed his sword away under the front panel of his black bear-fur robe, and then drifted comfortably down into the chair Rowan had fled from.

“I didn’t want it either,” Connor admitted softly, slumped in his chair and staring into the fire. Next to him, Diego reached through his clothes for a moment and withdrew a glittering silver flask, unscrewing the top off and taking a thoughtful pause.

“I don’t think the best of us ever do, Warden.” He drank from the flask and then handed it to Connor, who accepted the silver and enamelled piece. It was a Fereldan style flask with dogs stylistically engraved in the fine metal. He sniffed it instead of drinking, not fearing embrium, but… It was brandy.

“With all the embrium swimming around in my blood, you’re giving me alcohol?” Connor questioned, just because he didn’t want to take the alternative and weep. “There’s a reason my companions and I were actively drinking our way through half that tavern: taint you hate so much just _loves_ to burn through this.”

“Only a sip then,” the Crow told him. “You look like you could use it.”

“If she stays that upset all day, I’m going to need embri- sorry, I’m going to need _lyrium_ tonight to keep the demons away.” Connor took a drink from the flask to try and loosen his tangled tongue. The brandy was warm and smooth and sweet, going down slow and easy before he handed the flask back to its owner. The drink didn’t warm him, it felt cold.

“No no, I don’t think that was a slip,” Diego told him, capping the flask and returning it to its hiding place. “Embrium and Lyrium. I will take your word for it.”

“Thank you.”

And so passed another day.

* * *

 

“I hear you two’re looking for work.” Warden Ensign Meelo Hassick turned to look over his shoulder in the crowded winter tavern. Redcliffe Village was getting its latest dump of icy rain and snow again today, and he and Warden Athras had taken a standing-room-only table that was chest-high on both of them, each slowly drinking through a pint of the tavern’s ale. They’d been in Redcliffe for three days after taking a frustrating week to reach the Hinterlands once the Imperial Highway had dropped off beyond West Hills.

“You heard right, old man.” He held a hand to keep Athras from speaking. The Dalish Warden was good at what she did and good company on the road, but Redcliffe did not suit her. An’eth wanted to be out storming the castle gates, shaking down guards trying to figure out where in the Maker’s Sight their Corporal had gone, but that wasn’t going to work. Hassick knew streets and shop-keeps and mercenaries, he knew their type and how they liked things done. If you wanted information then you had to earn it. “What can my Dalish friend and I get done for you?”

“Your Dalish friend speak at all?” Hassick was facing a _very_ old man, sheet white hair and thick moustache that obscured his lips. He was aged like bleached driftwood, heavy but brittle.

“Aye, but not when it comes to contracts.” They were supposed to be mercenaries, not _Wardens_ , sell-swords. Athras had grated against the idea the whole time on the roads south from Denerim, but there was no hacking it. If there were Antivan Crows of all people around then wearing Warden griffons and announcing themselves would get them stabbed and dumped in Lake Calenhad. Hassick was better prepared to just revert back to old skills than to let that happen. “We’re worth what we charge.”

“And what might that be?”

“Depends on what we’re doing.”

“Culling wolves in this icy piss sound good to you?” Not at all, but that wasn’t what a proper sell-sword would say.

“We’re still living large off our last contract, how big are these wolves?”

“Big enough for two mercenaries I don’t know to consider dealing with them for me.” Fair enough, if this was going to be their introduction to Redcliffe proper.

“Let me buy my future employer a pint, maybe?”

“Good lad.” Hassick fetched the drink, and when he came back An’eth was shooting daggers from her green eyes at him and he just had to ignore it. Yes, he knew they were Wardens, yes, he knew they weren’t actually here to go hunting wolves, but no, that didn’t change the fact that this was probably going to happen anyways. “The name’s Murdoch, I was mayor of this town for over twenty years before that business with the Mages told me it was time to consider my retirement.”

“And yet here you are, arranging contracts, Master Murdoch.”

“It’s for old Sal. If you think I’m grey, that bastard’s practically the walking dead.” Hassick laughed at the joke, An’eth did not because she was a Dalish stick-in-the-mud. Her fingers were twitching and he read, _‘Are you serious?’_ between them.

 _‘Yes._ ’ He answered, and then wiped his nose with the same hand.

They took Master Murdoch’s contract. Redcliffe Village itself was in the habit of getting absolutely pissed on by every storm to thunder across Lake Calenhad towards it. Sheets of blindingly cold rain that made your teeth chatter and toes fall off. The roads did their best but they were a wet and ugly slurry of filth and water, and beyond the edge of town and the faded remains of Old Redcliffe, the path was clear but swollen. It turned to snow before they were beyond sight of the great windmills, the stubborn things still spinning in the awful winter.

“I hate you!” An’eth was just as miserable as the weather but Hassick didn’t know what the shit to tell her. “He could be dead for all we know, and we’re out finding over-grown _dogs!_ ”

“Is this just you being sensitive about your Dread God?”

“The Dread _Wolf!_ And no, we Dalish kill wolves all the time!”

“Then fucking find them, so we can _kill_ them, so we can go back and get information!”

“ _You sold us out here for eight silvers!”_

“ _And information! For fuck’s sake, Athras, just track!_ ”

“In _pissing_ rain!” And snow. Had he mentioned the snow yet? No? Well it was _delight_.

Thick. Heavy. _Soaking wet_. Most people would assume a bit of rain would make snow vanish like magic! _Fuck no_. This was snow that had fallen five feet deep overnight, a showering slurry of melted snow made it condense and fall in on itself, making the top a hard shell that cracked and teased the hard leather and metal of their greaves like blunt knives- not enough to harm, just enough to make them anxious about where they stepped. There was no sodding point in bringing the horses with them, and honestly Hassick was convinced his crossbow would spit more water than steel by the time they finally reached the damned den!

“These are the Crossroads!” He moaned as they stumbled past burnt-out and overgrown huts and the abandoned remains of a village that couldn’t hack it in the foul heart of winter. Andraste stood as a grey pillar in the middle of it all. “That shit drunk you hated so much in Redcliffe told me all about it! Mages and Templars ripped the whole trading post to hell, Inquisition keeps a camp just a mile up that way, in the hills! Every busted shell of a hutch you see is owned by family in Redcliffe trying to get the funds and man-power back to rebuild. Keep on for a day, or two at this pace, and we’ll reach the farmlands, you ever head of Horsemaster Dennet?” Oh, Maker, it was so cold, snow up to his sodding _knees_ with every heavying step. Eight silver for _this?_

“I don’t care! I want to find the Corporal!”

“So do I!” Just deal with it, _just deal with it…_ If the wind would just _shut up_ and stop trying to deafen him!

“That’s Fort Connor!” He shouted as the day dwindled and the looming, broken mass of stonework and masonry hunk dank and abandoned on the next high hill. “Darkspawn blew it to shit during the Blight, but it held out until within a week of the Battle of Denerim!”

“How popular is that name among you shems?” She asked him, anything to distract from this miserable hike.

“ _Not very!”_ Damn this wind! “Warden Guerrin’s father owned these lands, remember! He built the fort: Redcliffe’s belonged to House Guerrin since King Calenhad’s time.”

“And that is-?”

“Fucking Hell, Athras! You were born in Ferelden!”

“I was born _Dalish!_ ”

They schlepped and sloughed their way through the miserable marsh of wet and cold. Arthras couldn’t find a single wolf’s track, but she did find the fur. One way or another, the woman actually did find a den of-

 _“_ Ah _fuck!_ ” Dire wolves-!? They were massive!

His crossbow did _not_ appreciate the weather, and when a piece of ice jammed her completely there was no helping it: down in the snow because he couldn’t holster it with his sodding cape, and the cloak went off too to give his blades a chance to snatch through the storm. Wolf’s blood splattered hot and red in the rain, and Hassick desperately missed the woven silverite of his Warden armour when powerful jaws clamped around his forearm and tried to wrench him down. He braced his legs in the thick mud, roared back at it, and felt the taint carry his body back and around so he could slam his elbow down into the offending creature on the ground, gashing its face open with his blade before it released and he could plunge the dagger firmly through its ribs and kill it.

An’eth’s bow killed two before she resorted to her spear, cracking skulls and breaking ribs as the pack circled, reconsidered what they were up against, and fled with howls fluttering away through the sparse trees.

The Wardens found the den and waited out the storm there, idle hands ready for the task of skinning the seven or so animals they’d taken down. It was proof of the contract and the fire they set to burn out the den and keep the pack from returning was good enough.

It was _slightly_ better going back to Redcliffe, probably because the _fucking rain_ had stopped and been replaced with proper snow this time, which made the walk slippery and cold and glaringly white. But they’d had a fire and neither one was above eating wolf’s meat if it was freshly cooked and the only hot food for miles, even if a single gamey bite was enough to keep you chewing for a good ten minutes at a time. Miserable south, there was a reason he’d struck north from Denerim and gone to Amaranthine for work!

Murdoch was pleased with them, but as expected he withheld payment of the silver. He threw out a hand and walked the two of them to his own house, opening the door and getting them settled down at a table with a rich lunch of roasted pheasant and potatoes stewed in thick gravy. _This_ was proper food, and it was quite hard for either of them to eat as slowly as they knew they ought to. Wardens could eat a lot at single sitting but there was no good to come if they indulged in odd habits now.

“Two mercenaries take a day to slaughter half a pack of wolves, skin ‘em, and bring back the pelts with hardly a scratch on ya.” Murdoch had a thick pipe in his mouth, smoke wafting out from under his moustache. Hassick considered bringing out his own but he’d left the damned thing in Denerim with his proper armour. Ah well, at least there was ale.

“Told you we’re worth what we charge,” he said, swallowing some of that light, nutty amber. An’eth was shuffling the cards Murdoch had put down on the table for them, the old deck rattling as her clever fingers cut and fanned them. “Now, about payment…”

“I was thinking I’d pay you with another job.” Alright, he was _listening_. “How opposed are you two to heading back north for an important errand I’ve got?”

“Depends on what the errand is, exactly,” An’eth answered this time, looking up with her face tattoos pulling darkly at her skin. “We were thinking of hanging around Redcliffe for a little while.”

“I need someone capable and good at what they do to get this done, Huntress.” The former mayor explained, voice suddenly low, and Hassick politely leaned down to hear it. “Fast and discreet delivery, I need to be able to trust you not to shit yourselves at the first sign of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Quiet trouble. Feathered trouble.” Oh, now either this old man was very dramatic, or he knew _exactly_ what he was talking about.

“Got a few loose birds wandering about town?”

“More than a few, and I’ve good reason to guess what they’re after.” Well then Hassick would be happy to hear it, if the old man would share. “You two ever been to Amaranthine Arling?”

“Maybe,” Hassick answered.

“My clan frequents the southern part of the Arling,” An’eth said truthfully. “I know the roads, the towns are what this lug-head is for.”

“You’d know the way to Vigil’s Keep then?”

“I certainly should.” Good for her, she found a way to carry on without _any_ lying! “What are we taking, and why to the Grey Wardens?” Murdoch took a moment to just sit there and look at An’eth. It didn’t feel like a judging stare, it was more like on of those empty gazes old folks fell in to when they had memories stirring in their foggy brains.

“I know the Hero of Ferelden- not _well_ , not well.” He raised a hand to point that out explicitly. “But I was here when he freed Redcliffe from blood magic and a possessed mage up in the castle. And I followed him willingly in the Arl’s Army for the march to Denerim. I was there when he lit up Fort Drakon like a feast-day beacon. I respect him, I owe him every day of mine and my family’s lives for the last fifteen-odd years. I _respect_ the Grey Wardens.”

Murdoch sat back with his announcement, eyes vacant and staring at the empty plates strewn out over the wide table. His family members were in the house, but upstairs, unseen.

“I respect Arl Teagan, but it gets hard sometimes,” the old patriot admitted. “During and after the Blight, he was a saint. He was everything we could have needed or asked for, everything Andraste could give a man she gave to Teagan. I don’t know what happened, but between Denerim and the Free Marches where he grew up it feels like we lost him once the crisis was over. How else could the Magisters just march in the way they did and foist him from his own castle? And now this, all of this. It’s too spread out to be this small.”

“Mayor Murdoch?” Hassick pressed, confused now and quite certain he was losing the thread of whatever this meeting was meant to be about. When the old man looked at him again, his eyes were lucid. His loyalties were aching, but he’d made his decision.

“I need you to take these to the Warden Commander of Ferelden.” He said, reaching into his pocket and grasping something small. “Trouble’s been asking about them.”

Murdoch placed a thick, round ring of bloodstone on the table, and An’eth’s fingers snatched it up before Hassick even recognized the open hand of the Magi carved on its wide face.

“Where did you-?” The former Mayor was pulling at a cord around his neck, and all the pretense and pretending to be sell-swords fell to ashes with the breath pain he sucked in at the sight.

A Grey Warden’s Oath hung from the delicate chain, and next to it was a heavy Amaranthine copper key. Murdoch pulled the tokens off over his head and put them straight into Hassick’s hands, and he cradled them, able to feel his own pendant hurting under his armour.

Warden Guerrin’s oath pendant was a flat disc of silverite, thick and heavy with a griffon’s wings spread across it and a shallow glass bead filled with a suspended red and black streak of blood. The key was the body of Amaranthine’s prowling bear walking towards the teeth of the pick. Combined with the ring there was no doubting who these had belonged to.

“So you really aren’t no normal sell-swords,” Murdoch stated with a confident gloat, and Hassick couldn’t care less what the old man thought because they’d _found him_ , Maker Guide Them further now, they’d _found him_ …

“Where did you get these?” Hassick finished An’eth’s question, and then in sync the two of them traded the tokens they were holding. An’eth was worrying her bottom lip, cheeks flush and emotions fighting as she touched her fingertips to where her own oath was hiding under her armour, then down over the engraving on Connor’s.

“’bout a week ago Ser Perth of the Knights of Redcliffe-” Hassick felt his jaw lock, teeth clenching at the name. “-came down into the village with a crate of goods. Came right in here and told me to get my boat off the dock. He loaded it up in the belly of that old skiff and told me to wait until nightfall to row it out and dump it in the lake. Told him I didn’t need no help with it and went out on my own, but I just couldn’t get over the idea of throwing what sounded like steel into the water instead of letting the forges melt it down. Sure enough, open it up and see a whole array of Warden armour.”

“Where’s the rest?”

“Bottom of Lake Calenhad. Went through as much of it as I could and found those few things. Figured I could hide them better than the pauldron or gauntlets and they’d mean more to whoever came looking.”

“But you didn’t know we were Wardens until you showed us this,” Hassick said, trying to form a question out of it.

“Didn’t have to. Trouble came by twice already asking about Perth’s crate, pretty sure next time they’ll be rifling through drawers and pulling the place apart.” Maker, that was not a threat any freeman would willingly accept. “Just get ‘em to the Vigil. Go.”

“But the Warden himself-”

“I don’t know nothing more, Warden, _go._ ”

“But-”

“Get out of Redcliffe, ride like Hessarian’s army is behind you, just _go_.” Hassick reached for the man’s arm, clasping his wrist.

“The Warden Commander will know that you helped us.”

“ _Go._ ” The old man shook Hassick off and he stood with the third dismissal. An’eth was already on her feet, murmuring an elven blessing as they both hurried from the house. Hassick tried to slow them both down, they didn’t want attention, and as they entered the tavern with their room on the second floor their hands started speaking.

_‘We need to leave.’_

_‘Not today.’_

_‘Why not today!?’_

_‘Because we spoke to someone they’re watching and we just had a rough night: if we leave now, they’ll follow.’_

_‘But we have to-’_

_‘Soon, I promise.’_

_‘What if we split up?’_

_‘B-o-u-c-l-i-e-r said not to go alone.’_ Maker, it was hard to name someone who wasn’t standing right in front of you.

_‘At dawn?’_

_‘At dawn.’_

They would leave for Vigil’s Keep at dawn.


	29. Kindness and Duty

_I want to stay._

Connor was ready to attack.

_No, I do not want anything else: only to stay._

He wasn’t about to believe that!

_In this place where dreamers frequent, and the frightening, despairing, angered creatures hesitate to tread…_

“And then what?” Connor asked in the Fade. He held his staff at ready behind him, feet braced on the rotunda’s dusty floor. For some reason when he’d arrived tonight the floor’s edge, under the windows and on the outside of them, were carpeted with long green stalks of something trying to grow. It had occurred to him much too late that allowing the library of memories and lessons to linger for so many nights had probably been very stupid of him. “You wait until we aren’t paying attention, and then attack!”

_It is not my nature._

“Well what is your nature then! Show yourself! Name yourself!”

_My nature is no more to seek conflict than yours is, dreamer. My name is my name is as I always have been. My name is the length and breadth of my being, encompassing and whole in a way which you… which no dreamer, has ever obtained._

“Don’t dodge the question!” Rowan was crying, softly, fear weeping off of her spirit. She was still upset from what had happened during their lesson and the blurring cycle of dreams and lessons. Now she was even further distressed by the fact that Connor looked different. He was brimming with lyrium and she said it made him shine and hurt her eyes to look at, how she wanted the light to go away, how she didn’t recognize him like this.

The voice continued to speak and Connor could not _find_ _it_ in the rotunda. He would almost have it and then like a bird it would flitter away too quickly for him to follow. The rotunda floor was a cascading weave of white glyphs: protection, repulsion, warding, warning, cleansing, and so on. Rowan was kneeling in the centre of the lattice, Connor forcing himself to walk the perimeter of it, stepping softly between the criss-crossing lines as his ice slept uneasily in its locked glyphs, traps of fire and the rolling anger of a thundercloud doming the space. If the demon attacked, it would never make it past him to Rowan.

_This is not as I have witnessed before. You aggress where before the passive road to sweep under conflict took steady anchor in your heart. Ah- it is the child?_

“Leave her alone!” He shouted. “You’ll not come any closer to her!”

_Near and far are not principles adhered to by-_

“I know how the rules work and I know I’ll do whatever it takes to keep your kind away from her!”

_You owe her nothing._

“She’s a _child!_ ”

_She is the one who brought you to this state._

“ _No!_ The Arlessa did that!”

_There is no spite. No malice._

“Nothing I can’t handle- be gone!”

_Do I aggress, dreamer? Does Kindness come to a disservice?_

“If you were truly kind then you’d _show yourself!_ ”

There was a long pause and then the Fade rippled. Connor felt the flutter of soft wings beat rapidly over his head, weaving through the magical barriers and turning one of the rotunda’s unblocked windows to smoke. The arch disintegrated soundlessly and spilled down, thick, high grasses forming and weaving away like a green ribbon dancing through the yellow light. It formed a path down through the endless sky, where it reached a little island Connor could still see from the rotunda.

_Come. Kindness will prove itself._

If it was a Spirit of Kindness then Connor could leave it be, but if it was anything else then the thought of fighting it on its own little grassy knoll was still something he knew he could handle. He had lyrium stirring through his spirit, thinning the veil between his body and mind and allowing him to draw more power and thoroughly reinforce his own will. However, as soon as he made to step across the last of his glyph’s lines and enter the grass, he was stopped.

 _‘No! NO! Don’t leave me!!’_ Rowan’s hands grabbed at his belts, they tangled in his gear, grasping for his hands and fighting to grip anything she could. _‘Don’t go! Don’t leave! You made it safe here- **don’t leave!**_ ’

“Rowan, if it’s a demon then I have to…” He saw her face, flushed and sweaty and thick tears rolling down her cheeks. Her hair was loose and tangled, voice wailing and screaming when he tried to work her hands off of him. He felt his resolve bend, and then immediately break. She finally conjured herself and it was to weep and scream for him not to walk off into danger.

“It’s grass!” She sobbed, “It’s thin, it’ll break and you’ll fall and you won’t come back and you’ll leave me alone and-”

“Rowan, _Rowan_. Hush, child.” Connor took a knee, one hand still on his staff as the other reached up to cup her face, voice soft and trying to calm her. “Hush, it’s alright. If it upsets you this much then I won’t go anywhere.” If it was a demon it would grow angry and then attack them, meaning he would fight closer to Rowan but still be able to protect her. “Come back to the centre of the glyphs, little dreamer. I’ll stay with you this-”

With a thick hiccup Rowan threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, crying heavily against the collar of his armour. He coiled his arm around her back to close the hug, no hesitation at all.

She forgot how heavy she was supposed to be and Connor was able to stand quite easily, hushing her gently and walking back to the middle of the overlapping spell weave. He set her back down on her feet and when Rowan wouldn’t let go of him, he knelt down and settled his staff on the ground, hugging her properly with both arms for a long, steady while.

“It’s okay…” he hushed, brushing his hand down over her hair. It behaved like smoke but he could see it, she was getting used to the idea of herself. “It’s all okay. I remember being all alone in the Fade once too. You’ll be alright, Rowan.”

“Don’t go away…”

“I won’t, I’m right here.” He settled down properly and was surprised but not upset when she invited herself into his lap, still wracked with fear from his near-abandonment and further distressed with the way the hug hadn’t felt like a hug.

As in, it had all the _emotion_ of a hug, the warmth and safety, but not the actual focus and sensation of arms and hands and heartbeats. Connor let her stay curled up against him, and when curiosity began to needle her he let the child see the head of his staff, the facetted crystal clutched at the head, the black bindings, the flecks of obsidian folded into the metal.

“Do you remember telling me how you wanted to be a knight, little dreamer?”

“Yes, like my aunt.” She explained. “Father and Uncle Teagan always tell me stories about my aunt Rowan, Knight of Redcliffe and Queen of Ferelden.” Connor had been told the same stories and had aspired to be the same thing once. He had been destined to be a hero like his Grandfather Rendorn Guerrin, to take his father’s place as advisor and cousin to King Cailan when he came of age. Magic had taken all of that away but Connor was silent and stowed the bitter feelings too deeply inside of him for Rowan to find. She told him stories about their aunt Rowan and her green plumed helmet, her black armour, her wild hair and passionate love for King Marric. She mistook details of King Alistair and King Cailan’s relations, but Connor didn’t interrupt her: she was too young to have her aunt and idol painted the deceased wife whose memory had narrowly avoided disrespect from a washerwoman’s spread thighs.

It broke poor Rowan’s heart to know she would never be a knight now: never Ser Rowan Guerrin, Lady of Redcliffe. Connor listened and was sympathetic, but finally he had to say something.

“Not every mage wields a staff and wears a robe, little dreamer.” He had not sensed the demon return to haunt them yet, the grassy path remained but Connor was content to remain where he was and look after his sister. “The man I serve is a mage of incredible power, but he carries a sword and shield to fight with when he chooses to.”

“No, everyone knows mages can’t use swords.”

“A sword is just a sharp bit of metal in a handle, it’s not as if there’s anything physically stopping either of us from picking one up.” Not necessarily true, he realized too late: there were three Crows and a Talon who would each object to Connor reaching for a blade. “Here, let me see if I can conjure him for you.”

Connor had to release some of the wards protecting them from the demon. He could feel something self-aware hovering nearby again, but it wasn’t approaching them. He cleared a spot on the floor not far from the edge of their glyphs, and Rowan was calm enough to let his hands weave and work without complaint. Let’s see…

“He’s elven… not very tall…” Light blossomed across the stones and Connor tried to picture Warden Commander Surana. It wasn’t really _him_ , just an image of him. He was lithe and stood confidently, a white form with few features that filled themselves in as Connor concentrated. His pauldron grew from one shoulder and the form of his breastplate and faulds changed his figure significantly. Connor remembered the way his archmage robes had been modified with special tucks and slashes to fill him out further and give him a presence that reminded everyone around that he was no one to be trifled with. The weight of the sword he wore at his belt, the shell of his kite shield, the proud head of his staff...

He had the outline quite clearly focused now, so if he only willed it with colour and gave him his fa-

 _WHAM_.

Connor’s focus _shattered_ in a thousand pieces, pain shot through his head like he’d been slammed full with the haft of a blunt object and he went tumbling backwards, physically and mentally forced _away_ from his own conjuring. The will that thrust him away crushed his without a sound, a hammer blow answering his idle prod. He tumbled and spun and slammed hard into the table in the middle of the rotunda, settling with a painful gasp and a wild storm of confusion.

“ _Warden!_ ” Rowan came scampering to his side. Connor felt pain and warm blood on his forehead, an effect of the stronger will telling him he should feel hurt and injured after whatever he’d tried to do. She helped him up to his knees and fussed anxiously over his bleeding face, but Connor wasn’t concerned about that.

“I’ve felt that will before,” he whispered, memories stirring and effecting the Fade around him. They flickered like light through a spinning wheel: burning wagons, screaming travellers, dying men and women. A mountain brought cascading down over the road, a night-sky filled with the powerful threads of one Archmage’s casting. “How did I do that?”

“Warden, what are you doing?”

“Something stupid, stand back a bit.” He called his staff to him and planted it straight and tall next to where he stood, picking a place on the rotunda floor to focus. Connor swept his hands out, twisting threads of energy together: a summoner’s pattern wove across the floor, the sort of thing he had once used at the Circle to call minor spirits from the Fade. Enchanter Leorah had always criticized Connor’s will and inability to hold such spells in place, but he wasn’t a terrified apprentice anymore.

He visualized his Commander, pictured the Hero of Ferelden in his arms, his armour, his blue eyes, his slender jaw, his stern presence, his-

The pattern ignited and immediately corrupted. A fierce energy roared through instead of the image of the mage Connor was trying to bring forth. He sensed the blow coming this time and told his barrier spell not to break- _do not break!_

It absolutely broke and this time instead of taking a blunt shot to the forehead Connor felt the point of a sword rupture not just his barrier, but then pierce clean through his left side. He staggered to one knee, hand clutching the gaping wound as heat flooded down slick and heavy over his gloved fingers. The most important thing Connor managed to do was look up and see the black cracks sucking down the remaining energy, taking it all back to wherever it had come from.

He was in pain: searing, _debilitating_ pain. The will that had attacked him lingered in the damage, resisting hard when he told the wound to heal, the blood to stop, the skin to stitch itself back together. It was like arguing with a river and telling it not to flow, Connor could stop only what ran right against him, the rest surged on unaware and unhindered. His feet struggled for purchase and he kept himself up on one shaking arm, writhing trying to calm himself and _heal_. This was him after taking _lyrium_ to help fend off the demons, and he was being brought down steadily harder by… Maker, it _had_ to be the Commander’s own defenses, it _had_ to be. Surana’s wards to keep demons and spirits and other things from reaching him while he slept. They wouldn’t even allow his image to be summoned elsewhere, everything Surana conceived himself as was meant to be hidden and protected by mental wards that would stop anything from trespassing while he slept.

Connor had found Carver by happenstance, by thinking hard about him while trapped in a part of the Fade that had not been _quite like the Fade_. It had never occurred to him to just _summon_ someone, to…

_There is another Spirit on the other side._

Oh Maker, not this one again.

“Kindness?” Connor asked, slowly sitting up on his knees with Rowan crying heavily on his shoulder, her ghostly hands trying to help his press down and stop the bleeding. Hush- _hush,_ he would be okay…

_Yes?_

“What do you mean, another spirit?” He called out, taking both of Rowan’s hands in his and twisting a spell of healing between them. It was something to distract her, to make her feel like she was helping him, and he placed the spell against his body just to try and convince the pain to abate.

The spirit fluttered unseen, small and quick and barely there. It was not male or female, it simply was as it was and what it was wanted to help.

_A Spirit of Duty and fulfilled promise guards the dreamer your spells seek out. Its will is strong and their bond securely forged, it knows how it may service one who breathes conviction and takes honour not as chains, but as armour._

“He’s a Spirit Healer- his companion is _Duty?”_

_And their nemesis is Pride, who partners now with Scorn and Outrage and stalks Duty’s charge. He does not rest easy; Duty will not say more._

“Wait- you’re actually _talking_ to it!” Connor shouted, eyes searching for the spirit. “And Duty can speak to Surana directly? Take him a message from me- _please!_ ”

This- he hadn’t thought of this. It had never even occurred to him that this-! He could reach out? Contact them! Actually get word back to-!

 _“Please, Kindness! **Please!** ”_ The Fade swallowed his cries, but the awareness of something hovering not far from them did not waver.

_Kindness asks for no return, I am my own reward. What would Kindness say to Duty?_

“That Rowan Guerrin is a mage!” He blurted out all at once. “She’s a mage and I _did not defect!_ Warden Corporal Connor Guerrin _did not_ leave the Grey Wardens! I was captured and I can’t escape! I’m held in Redcliffe Castle and please- I’m sorry, I’m _so sorry, Commander… Forgive me… I can’t escape…_ ”

Confusion leapt high and wild next to him, shock rippling through Rowan’s fragile form as the little girl recoiled from him. Connor remained kneeling on the rotunda floor, shouting for the Spirit to hear him, please, please hear him.

“She’s a mage and I didn’t defect. My family did this, not me! My mother planned this whole thing! And I’m sorry, Commander! I’m _sorry…!_ ”

Connor was not prepared to face Rowan when Kindness bent itself to the requested task. He did face her, but he wasn’t ready for it.

She woke up but the echoes of confusion, and anger, and pain left a mark on the Fade.

_Duty has taken the message, but has exchanged it for caution. Duty’s loyal companion has been asked to choose between what is expected of a Commander and what is demanded of a Father._

“What?” Connor asked, startled away from his sister’s departure. “Why? What do you mean?” As a _father_? That meant- “What’s happened to Kieran?”

_Duty faces a serpent with two heads, the same body spitting different poisons. He must hold his path firmly, awaiting the moment to cleave both heads with one swing._

“What happened to Kieran!”

_An offense to be corrected: that is all the Spirit of Duty is obliged to tell._

“What _happened!?_ ” he shouted again, growing frantic. Something was happening to the Fade. “Was it the Crows? _Talon Diego Valisti keeps me prisoner!_ Tell him! Tell Zevran Arainai that it’s Talon- _!_ ”

For the first time since taking embrium hidden under sweet wine, Connor felt himself being forced awake. Kindness’ wingbeats scattered and the Fade melted away into warm air, suffocating closeness, and two angry hands hoisting him up by the front of his shirt.

He gasped, tried to speak, eyes fluttering open in shock before he was forced down hard on the bed, crushing weight forcing itself down on his ribs.

“Not so well-behaved after all, it would seem.” No- what was happening? The Talon was- “You are much smarter than most would give you credit for, Grey Warden, but perhaps I have merely been too complacent. How else could demons chasing the sister be struck down by the brother if you were not together in your dreams? I did not see it before, but I am _disappointed_ that you were not more forthcoming with me.”

“No-” His body was still warm and heavy, his vision blurred past the point of use. He was too frightened to fall asleep and he’d been woken up on purpose, they were-

“You lied! You lied, Mother, _you lied!_ ” He heard Rowan screaming, heard something fall and shatter on the floor, “He said his name is _Connor!_ He said he’s a Grey Warden! He called you _mother!_ He has the same name and Uncle Teagan told me he died and he _didn’t_ because you _lied!_ ” She was not in this room, she was somewhere close by and she was _howling_.

“I will need time to consider how to properly handle you. Anira, keep him down but awake.” He spoke in trade so Connor could hear him- would _fear_ him.

The door closed against Rowan’s shouting, took the Talon’s weight off of him but that didn’t mean Connor could move.

“Such a shame,” a woman’s voice said over him. He was bound, he couldn’t move his hands or arms, and he was too drugged to roll or sit up. “I was becoming rather fond of you and I think Mattan and Talon Diego were too. But we can’t have captives running secret rendezvous, can we? Makes the guild look bad.” With the tug and rip of a knife, his nightshirt’s linen seams were torn open: easier than untying him and far, far more frightening. “The locals call this plant _rashvine_ , let us see how good it is at keeping an addict like you _awake…_ ”

Connor could not scream, and he could not escape.

* * *

 

Duty rarely interrupted Soren’s sleep. The deepest rest was found in the unbroken hours of the night, and Maker knew Soren needed that rest now. Out of respect for his needs the Spirit helped guard him, standing vigilant beyond the scope of his wards and reporting back only when necessary. When he slept unguarded Duty often appeared and would follow or guide him across the dreamscape. They would speak openly then, or as clearly as a spirit and a mortal were able, and anything that came upon them would fall to Duty’s sword and Soren’s magic.

Last night he had used his wards, and this morning while he’d been in the dreary-eyed process of pulling the spells apart so he could get up and face Denerim, Duty had announced itself in a most obtuse manner. He didn’t hear the knocking, or the voices, or the questions, or anything else. Soren’s awareness went no further than what was swirling rapidly through his mind, the diligent voice of a spirit who suddenly had so much more than normal to say was drowning everything else out.

Nathaniel was not someone who spooked or startled easily, but having Soren over an hour late just getting out of bed had warranted the Senior Warden enter the bedroom in search of him.

They had arrived in Denerim last night much to Chamberlain Shianni’s shock: fifty Grey Wardens with a half-dozen attending aids, including Compounder Ansera as-per His Majesty’s request. They’d come with next to no warning for the house to make any attempt to prepare themselves. Soren had seen to Nathaniel’s steady recovery and eased the remaining traces of his assault as a matter of pride, not necessity, sent word to Alistair that he would have his _much desired_ address tomorrow, and then gone to bed after giving a reminder to his men about conduct. There would be absolutely no mistakes tomorrow.

“Soren? Soren! Commander can you hear me!?” Nathaniel found him that morning doubled over in bed, the veil fluttering thin and frail, ghostly grey light swirling down over him. Soren didn’t know if he’d been more awake or asleep, but it had taken Velanna and Mahanon more patience than either normally displayed to make sure no one panicked over the issue.

He woke up properly nearly two hours after he should have been out of bed, and with both burnt hands rubbing his face had called for ink and paper to be brought to him.

Spirits were poor messengers. Duty had spoken of Kindness, and Soren was willing to trust one Spirit to be able to recognize another in the Fade of all places. Duty claimed Kindness claimed to speak on behalf of a dreamer who was kind, and who owed a duty to report back to Soren. It was a twisted chain of aspects that was too tiring to think about at length, but as he muddled through the marsh of words he felt he finally came to a solid understanding.

The dreamer’s kindness was contrasted against cruelty from his family, and highlighted by his charity towards a second, smaller dreamer. Duty had been more caught up in the performed obligation of a brother guarding a sister than in telling Soren _who_ the duo even were. He knew, of course, but the issue with rescuing Connor was _proof_. Duty had eventually come around to that understanding, and had told him a Grey Warden was being held captive. Again, something Soren knew.

But he was being held so he could _protect_ his sister. And that, _that_ was the sticking point. If Connor was being used to protect his sister Rowan in the Fade, then Rowan had to _be_ _in_ the Fade to begin with. And the only way to do that was to be a _mage_.

Foul play, Eamon, trying this same gambit a second time.

“Warden Mahanon, see these sent to Captain Renth and Constable Oghren at Vigil’s Keep.” The Keep was nearly empty anyways save a contingent of ten wardens and ten silver order militia, but no one outside the Fortress needed to know the why and how of that. The Vigil was already calling for recruits to replenish the Silver Order after the mass joining. Bann Talbind of Amaranthine had already received a summons for lay men and militia to begin training and outfitting soldiers to defend the Arling with the sudden depletion of the Vigil’s defenses. He attributed the decision to the crisis at Soldier’s Peak, and he was not telling a total lie about it either.

“Yes, Warden Commander.” He had been extremely reluctant to watch Velanna give the chalice to the very last free member of Clan Lavellan, but Mahanon had been firm since he’d first arrived in Amaranthine after the Inquisition’s founding and his Clan’s devastation in the Free Marches. He chose to serve the Wardens and he’d survived the Joining: he’d earned it.

Nearly twenty honourable, strong, but tragic men and women at arms had died at Vigil’s Keep before they left. He had summoned them in groups of five to take the joining together, one group after the other, because Soren hadn’t been able to tolerate the idea of bringing eighty men and women into a dark chamber all at once. It had been hard enough being the third of three to attempt the Joining at Ostagar, he couldn’t force someone to stand eightieth of eighty.

He had made Velanna hold the chalice and speak the oath. He made her watch and relive it, not to punish her, but to make sure when she reclaimed her rank as Sergeant of the Grey and met her husband again in Denerim, she had _earned back_ the right to wear Grey Warden silver and blue. She had regained her pride and presence, and Soren chose to be satisfied.

Over twenty had died in the joining, over fifty had survived to become Grey Wardens, bringing the Order’s complete Ferelden total to seventy-three, minus Connor, Athras, and Hassick. Most of them did not have their proper armour yet, but their Silver Order gear worked just fine and each had taken to scratching and sanding the Amaranthine Bear off their uniforms in exchange for the crude beginnings of the Grey Griffon. What was Amaranthine gold they replaced with grey wool or black leather, whatever would distinguish them from the Arling and make the members of the Order was what they wanted. They’d taken their Joinings en-masse and for that Soren was remorseful, but it had been necessary.

Fifty Grey Wardens were present in Denerim. The estate could barely contain them all: Wardens slept four to a room, the hall was filled with their supplies, their arms, their provisions. The horses had not all fit in the house’s stables and yards, most of them were still outside the city limits with an additional Silver Order company to watch over them.

The math fell out neatly: there were now just over seventy Grey Wardens and fifty Silver Order soldiers in all of Ferelden, for a total of just under a hundred and thirty men and women at-arms under Soren’s direct command. Fifty Grey Wardens had come to Denerim and a company of ten Silver Order had accompanied them, making up nearly half of Soren’s available manpower. There were ten Wardens at Vigil’s keep under Oghren’s command, and ten Silver Order soldiers under Captain Renth. As for the remaining fifty bodies… well, that was what the dispatch from the estate’s rookery was for.

Word had been dispatched to Highever by slow, walking courier before Soren and his Wardens had marched south to Denerim to answer Alistair’s summons, so by next spring perhaps Teyrn Cousland would have a thorough explanation of what between Creation and the Abyss Soren was doing.

“Travel in companies of no more than five, be seen in the city!” He ordered, it was later in the morning than he would have liked but that was Duty’s fault, not his. “Do good works! Catch thugs and pick-pockets, give charity to beggars, pray in the Chantries! Accept insults with grace and muzzle your temper with the knowledge that you are Grey Wardens! Public opinion is all we may have in Denerim and you will cultivate it, squander nothing!”

He had gold from Amaranthine changed for silvers and coppers, dolling the money out and expecting his Wardens to return with significantly less when they were finished. He expected to be in Denerim for three days. He was pleased when Shianni told him that the Alienage was still trembling from a startling event that had occurred the night _before_ their arrival.

“I don’t know what we’re going to feed you, your Grace, but I’m glad to have you around with that dragon looming.”

“A dragon, you say?”

“Yes, my lord. A high dragon swept up from the southern side of the River Drakon not two nights ago and flew down over the city. If she’d loosed her breath on us the whole of Denerim may have burned but instead she just flew fast and loud overhead. She took at least four passes over the castle before tearing off to the west.” Soren already knew the answer: had anyone been injured? “Not as bad as they could have been, she flew so low she tore apart the central market with her wake, and- why it was the most terrifying moment of my life!”

“What was?”

“She touched down right here in the noble district, and with a great whip of her tail she toppled the retaining wall around House Guerrin’s estate! Ripped up the cobbles too but I just thank the Maker she didn’t come around the bend and terrorize us too.” Soren could have been either amused or annoyed with this information, instead he chose to consider it solemnly. He’d asked Morrigan not to kill anyone, but he had also asked her to stay _away_ from Denerim. So long as Kieran was still missing there would only be so much Soren or anyone else could do to persuade her, and as much as he hated to admit it: he quite wished she’d landed square on top of House Guerrin and scared Teagan to death in his bed.

Alistair had mustered his knights and guards to try and keep close watch in case the dragon reappeared, and Soren lent twenty Wardens to the task of helping clean and repair what remained of Morrigan’s rampage.

Among others, Soren took Nathaniel, Genevieve, Velanna, and…

“Warden Hawke.”

“Warden Commander.”

“If you accompany me to Castle Denerim, will you be able to handle yourself?” The younger Warden was not weathering this storm well. Hawke’s temper kept leading to fights, and those fights were ones he kept losing because there was something destructive and guilty boiling away inside of him. He was sleepless, eyes bloodshot and lips waxy, his armour dwarfing him despite the habitual care he still took with it. Hawke and Bouclier had fallen to shouting matches several times just on the road from Vigil’s Keep back to Denerim, and Soren refused to tolerate it, not in front of the new Wardens, not _now_ when he was on his way to court.

“I… I don’t know, Commander.”

“Then I will send you either into the city, or require you to remain here at the estate.”

“But I need to be there-”

“Did you take a mortal vow against Ser Perth of Redcliffe?” This was Ferelden, and Ferelden had rules. Soren didn’t have the time or patience to puzzle out what exactly was going on between Hawke and Connor to warrant the swordsman vowing before his peers to take no quarter and show no mercy if he met the commander of Redcliffe’s knights again, what he needed to know was if the rumour was true or not. “Warden Hawke, I asked you a question.”

“Before the Maker and among my brothers, Commander, yes.” Soren set his jaw firmly at the answer. “When I meet Ser Perth again I will challenge him to fight me to last breath, and if he refuses then I will kill him where he stands.” The urge to scold was there, but there was also a compelling memory stirring. Days before the Landsmeet meant to end the Ferelden Civil War, with Arl Eamon asking Soren and Alistair the same question of Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir. Soren hadn’t cared how difficult it ended up making the Landsmeet, and even if they’d lost the Bann’s vote there would have been no conceivable way for Soren to let the man who’d harboured blood mages and encouraged the all-out butchery of Uldred’s rebellion at the Circle to live another day. Eamon’s tone with him the night before had been the first sour note of this dissonant song of theirs.

He wasn’t going to do that with Hawke.

Soren gave orders to Hawke to remain behind, but he told him _why_. The vow would be fulfilled, but Soren couldn’t afford to have Hawke issue a mortal challenge in the middle of Alistair’s court _today of all days_ , and trying to stop him if he had a chance to encounter Perth would put strain between them when they could not afford to in-fight. _Connor_ could not afford to have the Grey Wardens fighting each other.

“Are we here for Connor, or for your son, Commander?” Do not be like that, Hawke.

“Both.” He said shortly. They were here to hurt House Guerrin.

Soren left Hawke behind and took Compounder Ansera, Nathaniel, Velanna, and Bouclier with him to Castle Denerim. Nathaniel grumbled the whole way there about being turned away at the gates every time since he’d regained enough strength to try and approach. Soren hushed him and they approached stalwartly, the Tranquil in their midst dressed in a finely stitched plain wool robe, the fabric died a deep midnight blue with Amaranthine gold embroidered tightly at the cuffs. Ansera bore with him a travelling apothecary’s kit, and the Formari had hardly spoken a word in Soren’s hearing since being told he was coming to Denerim. He kept his hood up, his eyes down, and drew no attention.

Bouclier knew not to speak lest she give away her accent under her helmet. Nathaniel and the others were to speak only when given direct permission, and with explicit orders to be _polite_ no matter how angry or affronted they became. 

The guards saw them at the main gate and held up a hand to say His Majesty King Alistair was too busy to tend to Grey Warden matters today. How quaint.

“Open the gate.”

“My apologies, Grey Warden, the King-”

“I am the Warden Commander and Hero of Ferelden, present today by order of King Alistair Theirin. Open the gate, soldier.”

“I- I’m sorry, your grace.” But the man did not go to raise the barrier.

“By whose order do you keep the castle shut?” He demanded.

“Arl Eamon of Denerim has stated that-”

“Do you stand here to insult me, to insult my King, by announcing King Alistair Theirin bends knee to Arl Eamon Guerrin?” He raised his voice and let it project, “I am the Arl of Amaranthine, Champion of Redcliffe, Fellow to the Landsmeet and summoned by my King to his court. Open the gates, or feel the blade which ended the Fifth Blight cut through your short life!”

“O-Open the gates!” _Wise choice._

“What happened to _muzzling our tempers_?” Nathaniel murmured softly as they crossed the courtyard to the high, closed doors. The weather was cloudy but not raining or snowing today.

“Your orders, not mine.” He answered smoothly. “And I don’t recall giving you permission to speak.”

“My forthright apologies, Warden Commander.”

They were nearly barred a second time at the main doors of the keep, but the guardsman was not as blindly loyal to his orders: no Arl could bar another with the same rank from going about his lawful business.

They entered the drafty stone caverns of Castle Denerim and Soren shouldered his staff, sliding it to the hook hidden under the wide face of his kite shield. His sword hung comfortably at his side next to the folded weight of a modest book of thick vellum- no secrets inside, only mnemonics for his spells and tasks, the hardy leather bound in iron and hanging comfortably. Behind him through his belt was the firm presence of his griffon dagger: a white and gold handled knife fashioned after a griffon’s raised wing. It had been a gift of rank sent by the First Warden after the Blight, well-used and kept out of sight. The Crow dagger from Nathaniel’s attack was naked at his side, opposite the sword. He had it for very good reasons, the smallest and least important was that the blade made Velanna uncomfortable, the most important was that carrying it around made him angry.

The Landsmeet was in session, not the full width and breadth of Ferelden, but enough for the court to make decisions and carry judgements over matters spanning overlapping banns and disagreements. The herald at the door announced him without issue, so it surprised Soren to find someone still speaking loudly in the crowded hall.

It surprised him even further to see that someone wearing steel armour in a mock-up of the Grey Warden’s silver and blue, griffons stenciled on his shoulders.

“The King of Ferelden _will_ acknowledge us!” The speaker, in a Ferelden voice, declared before the Landsmeet. “Surana’s only goal is to see the Order further fractured, he will realign with Weisshaupt in spite of the First Warden’s negligence, keeping us tethered to the Anderfels like dogs abused and starved by unworthy masters!” Was that so? “Unless this assembly acknowledges the independence of Soldier’s Peak under the banner of Warden Commander Andre Marseau!” So the Grey Wardens of Ferelden were barred from entering the castle on Arl Guerrin’s orders, but the Orlesians were free to come and take up the King’s time?

“You demand a farce!” Soren called out, and seated on the throne high before the speaking fraud and his two accompanying soldiers, Alistair’s head came up off his folded hand and he sat up properly on his throne, spinning a smile as Soren approached. He was pleased with the weight of his blue robe tucked and pulled through the silverite pieces of his armour, taking smooth, neat steps to fall well within the eye of the Landsmeet.

“My King.” He placed one hand on his sword’s hilt, the other to his heart, and bowed. When he straightened up he saw Alistair openly smiling and began to speak: “Soldier’s Peak was indeed built by Warden Commander Gaspar Asturian following the Second Blight in the Glory Age, but with the treason, blood magic, and death of Warden Commander Sophia Dryden two hundred years ago, Soldier’s Peak stood abandoned. By your grace and only with the aid of Teyrn Cousland, the Grey Wardens of _Ferelden_ rebuilt the fortress, but the Orlesians have no claim to her. The Peak needs Highever the way a horse needs legs to walk, anything less is a cold, slow death in the snow.”

“ _Welp,_ I guess that settles things!” Alistair announced, and the Fereldan man choked on his words, spinning between Soren and his King. “Tell Warden Commander Marseau, if that’s really his title, that he can either begin making tax payments to Teyrn Cousland or he can pick the Orlesian Wardens up and march them back to Orlais! The Inquisition, the Wardens of Ferelden, and myself are all ready to begin negotiating with Empress Celene to see you all transported home.”

“But your majesty!”

“ _Dis-missed!_ ” Alistair sing-song declared over the court, and from the throne next to him Anora was showing one of her rare, pleased smiles. “And look who finally decided to show up! Come closer, Arl Surana, I am very eager to-”

“This will not stand,” Soren had already mentally dismissed the Orlesian Wardens and their Fereldan friend, he was now much closer to the trio with his own Wardens behind him when he heard the leader snarl at him. Soren’s trail stopped dead and he turned a look on the gaunt human. This was not a tall man, Soren himself came close to being level with him: tolerable height for an elf, but humiliating for a human.

“Did you just interrupt my King?” He asked, voice even. He folded his hands behind his back, left fingers tucked around his staff should he need his right hand to pull it loose quickly, the hilt of his gold dagger resting between the small of his back and the tangle of his fingers.

“I told you it will not stand!” The man shouted, and he seemed suddenly _familiar_ to him. “You’ve been sitting pretty on a lie for over ten years, and won’t give the joining because you don’t know _how_.”

“Excuse me?” Oh, this human knew him. He’d seen this human before. Passed out on his back with one of Warden Athras’ white spears skewering his shoulder. “Dishonoured and discharged soldiers thrown out of the Silver Order have no right to address me or to disrespect my King. Away with you.”

“Dishonoured how?” Alistair’s voice sailed over them.

“Warden Howe, answer your Ki-” Soren was the one interrupted this time.

“I’ve taken my Joining, I _am_ a Grey Warden,” Gavric, had that not been his name? Nathaniel stepped past them and began to speak, answering Alistair’s question while Gavric swore and hissed at Soren still. “I know their secrets and now I _know your lies!_ Whoever lands the killing blow against an Archdemon is _instantly_ -”

“Fascinating,” Soren interrupted, and with a quick and simple action he put one hand to the man’s shoulder and stabbed the gold dagger through his neck with the other. It bit under his ear and drove down, the dagger’s sharp point vanishing as its wide edge was swallowed in thick red blood. The horrified man gasped and began to fall, allowing Soren to keep his grip on the knife and pull down, tearing cleanly free through the front. Zevran was right, it was good for him to practice these things. “But I won’t stand for such disrespect in my King’s court.”

Nathaniel had stopped speaking and was staring at him as Soren slicked his fingertips down the blade, swiping the thick droplets off on the throne room floor. At least he knew now that Soldier’s Peak had the means and the madness to hand out the Joining. It was a dangerous complication to go along with the resurrected question of who _had_ killed the Archdemon if everyone had seen Soren deal the blow, but to the Grey Wardens that meant he should be dead?

“Teyrn Cousland and King Theirin’s offers stand for the Orlesian Wardens, as does my ultimatum.” He told the two remaining Wardens. They were Orlesian, the social _graces_ of Ferelden were not familiar to them. Soren had just executed a man for disrespect and no one in the hall was doing more than uttering a soft murmur of surprise. “Do not let me catch any more of you beyond Soldier’s Peak unless you come to submit to my command or return to Orlais. My King dismissed you: get out.”

They took Gavric’s body with them, blood drizzling from his gashed open throat but his life already extinguished. Soren replaced his dagger in its sheathe behind him and stepped forward, moving into the space Nathaniel opened for him by side-stepping out of his way. Alistair was not smiling anymore, Anora’s was reigned in but still present.

“That man was a Grey Warden,” Alistair cautioned in place of a greeting. “It’s not like you to behave rashly.”

“Considering the circumstances it was hardly rash of me, my King.” Soren took one knee, letting the top of his greave touch the stone before rising again. “As requested, I have brought Formari Ansera of Vigil’s Keep to court with me today, although we nearly turned away at the front gate.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.” Alistair scoffed, but this was not a cheery topic and Soren would not let him think it was. “Did you bring the other person I asked for? I don’t see him here.”

“My Lieutenant has been turned away from court every day for the last week, your _Highness_.” Soren added a sting to the last word, because he _needed_ Alistair to understand that things were unwell. All he seemed to be listening for was what Teagan had told him. Soren could see him standing just left of the throne, watching them. “Otherwise, you would understand why that request was impossible to fulfill.”

“Let me guess, you sent him off to the _Free Marches_ this time.”

“Sergeant Howe,” Soren said, taking the crow dagger from his belt and holding it out with his left hand, gripping it around the guard rather than the hilt. “Present this to His Majesty, and explain where it was found.”

He could feel a cold look of disapproval from Nathaniel as Velanna took the knife that had nearly killed her husband. Alistair had grown comfortably into his role as monarch, but his eyes were snapping back and forth between the approaching Blight-scarred woman and the grave looking man behind Soren, building the connection from the shared name and reaching a proper understanding as Velanna took a knee and presented the dagger to him, flat across both her gloved hands.

“This blade was found in Warden Lieutenant Howe’s back the night Warden Guerrin vanished from Denerim.” Alistair took the knife, saw the skull, and mulled over it thoughtfully for a moment. “We have been unable to find proof of where they’ve taken him, your majesty.” Soren paid close attention to Anora when she opened her hand in her husband’s direction and he handed the assassin’s blade to her to examine. The Queen took a breath and her King took a moment to regard her, sensing her desire to speak.

“Warden Commander, I do not make it my business to ask after every tavern brawl and injury in the city, but was your Lieutenant not brought here to Castle Denerim with his injuries?” Soren answered with a yes. “Summon the surgeons.”

A human man and several assistants were found and brought to the hall. Normally there would be many conversations going on at once, a steady din of conversation, but the court was captivated by talk of Crows and Wardens. The surgeon was not a brave man but he faced the royal couple and agreed that yes, that was the correct blade, and as a sign of his nerves he added that he was very pleased to see Warden Howe walking and looking well. He was then graciously dismissed by Anora and seemed very relieved by that fact.

“How are we hearing about this now?” Alistair demanded, and next to his throne Soren was aware of Arl Teagan speaking quick and quiet with a much older man next to him: Arl _Eamon_. “Why were you turned away, Warden Lieutenant Howe? By whom?” Soren permitted Nathaniel to answer the questions.

“By your guardsmen, who claimed to act on orders from the Arl of Denerim.” Aggressively worded, but truthful.

“Summon Guard-Captain Kylon, I want answers.” Alistair ordered, and again a servant was sent running through the keep looking for the right person to bring before the court. The Guard Captain appeared in his regular arms and armour, clearly pulled from his duties to stand here and answer questions.

“I was told your Majesty had no wish to speak with the Grey Wardens until Arl Surana reached Denerim.” That was not _exactly_ what the guard outside had said, but who knew what the man had been told through either the chain of command or the allure of a simple bribe.

“Who gave you that order, Guard-Captain?” The King asked.

“Arl Eamon of Denerim, your Majesty.” Alistair didn’t demand to know why Eamon was delivering orders to the castle guards, but the _look_ that Anora slid to her husband said more than enough to satisfy Soren. Think, Alistair, why would Eamon _not_ want the Grey Wardens to come to court when the most they could have to report was that _Crows_ had taken Eamon’s _own son_ in the night?

“Dismissed, Guard-Captain.” Alistair’s words were short and tight, his shoulders straight and hands slowly starting to dig into the arms of his throne. Beside him, Anora’s veiled interest was watching the pieces start to move on the board, and Her Majesty saw no need to play just yet. “Dismissed. Everyone.” Alistair continued, unobstructed by his queen. “Court is dismissed! Out! All of you! _Except you_!” A thick finger was jabbed at Soren, and his only answer was a nod.

“You stay here!” The King shouted, voices rising around the room as nobles began to filter out of the hall, and _quickly_ too. It was not often their King raised his voice for anything. “ _Eamon!_ ”

“Warden Commander,” Anora’s soft voice hardly rose over the crowd. She didn’t often play the gentle queen, but her intrigue was enough to tend her to a more passive role. “Your companions may remain as well, especially as I understand that the Formari is integral to your negotiations with House Guerrin.”

“Many thanks, my Queen.”

“With more to come, I should think.” Yes.

By the end of this, certainly, yes.

 


	30. Sword of Gwaren

****

“When will Rowan arrive in Denerim?” Alistair demanded once the Landsmeet hall was cleared and the great doors slammed shut with an echoing boom. The King and Queen, three Arls, a Formari servant, and four Grey Wardens were the only ones present save a few hovering royal guards. No one spoke.

“Answer me!” The King shouted.

“At this point in the season, Alistair, it is too dangerous for Rowan and her mother to journey back to Denerim from the Hinterlands.” Arl Eamon Guerrin of Denerim, an old man descended from proud Alamarri stock, spoke his words with a grave solemnity.

“No matter,” Soren stated in response. “My Wardens and I will depart for Redcliffe in the morning. Foul weather will not delay us.”

“Before you do that,” Alistair told him from the throne, then looked down towards Eamon and his brother. “I told you _three damned weeks_ _ago_ that I wanted Rowan brought to Denerim!”

“She is _ill_ , Alistair.” Eamon argued, wizen and yet affronted, actually proud enough to deny Alistair with a tone that sounded scolding. “And I did not ask for the Warden Commander to come this far, I honestly have no idea why he’s here at all.”

“Because I sent for.” Soren answered.

“I was not addressing _you_.” Eamon hissed.

“I do not _need_ your invitation to speak.”

“You will remember your _place_.”

“Above yours?”

“ _Enough!”_ Alistair thundered, standing and stepping down between the two of them. “Enough, from both of you!” And the King turned with clenched teeth at Eamon, “You had no right to interfere with my business with the Grey Wardens, uncle. I _ordered_ Connor to remain in Denerim and told Howe report back to the castle the next morning- why in the Maker’s Name would you twist that into a command to keep out!”

“Your judgement is clouded every time the Grey Wardens are brought up, Alistair.”

“Oh and I wonder _why_ , Eamon!” Alistair leaned hard on the words, grinding the edge to a thin blade. “I’m trying to _fix_ things with your son and here you are sabotaging it!”

“That _whelp_ it not my-” Soren heard Nathaniel’s breath hiss and raised his arm as a signal to _hold_ and _be quiet_. He missed part of what the Arl said in his anger, but came back to hear: “I will not have the Grey Wardens inserting themselves into my family’s business!”

“Oh and you’ve just got mages lined up around Redcliffe all over again, have you?” Alistair insisted, slowly losing his temper. “Rowan’s too sick to travel and you’re perfectly _fine_ with that! Hum-drum, no issue at all? He’s got a missing Warden, you’ve got a missing _son_ , and yet he’s still here offering to hel- _wait a fucking minute-”_ Hmm… Alistair spun around and roared directly in Soren’s face with: _“Why the **fuck** are you here if one of your **Wardens**_ _is missing!?”_

“Because Denerim is where all Crow contracts entering Ferelden are handled,” Soren answered coldly. “I expect to have those contracts on my desk when I return to the estate tonight, and then when I have proof of who’s behind all of this…” It was hard to hold eye-contact with Alistair, it was an actual exercise of will not to stare into the eyes of the two men responsible for taking his son away. It had been a smart but unacceptable play on their part: if he acted too quickly, too boldly, or too harshly, they had Kieran. If he announced in front of Alistair that he wasn’t worried about Connor because he’d all but _spoken_ to him last night and had conceived of a way to reach out again, then all House Guerrin’s red hands would have to do was close around his son’s neck and stop him.

That threat _muzzled_ him, but oh, he still had claws.

“And how _exactly_ are you going to find information like that?” Eamon demanded of him, and Soren didn’t think he wanted to answer that, but without resorting to insults there were limited ways around it.

“By asking for it, of course.” Asking Zevran, who had left no message for Soren at the estate and so the best bet was that he was still somewhere in the city. Zevran would not fail with Kieran’s life on the line, but even under the impossible circumstances that he _did:_ “Crows are all about contracts and closing deals for large swaths of coin or influence. I have enough of both to make a tempting offer, especially when all I need are a wax seal and a name.”

“And you think anyone would _believe_ the word of cut-throats and assassins!” Teagan spoke up at last, supporting his brother with a wide scoff. Alistair made him choke on it.

“I would,” He said. “Crow Contracts don’t lie and their archives in Antiva are monoliths filled with traps and all kinds of unfortunate tricks. You can’t get a forgery, and you can’t _fake_ the Grandmaster’s seal on things like that either. All we’d need is Ambassador Rodrigo to look at whatever it is and verify if it’s a genuine seal.” Maybe Alistair didn’t see what effect his words had on the two Arls, but by blood and damnation, Soren couldn’t focus on them either because his friend and King was looking firmly at _him_ before he finished his sentence. “Contracts are expensive and that means whoever did this has significant means. If you bring a grandmaster’s seal and their name back here, Soren: I’ll put their head on a pike.”

“If you make that a promise, your majesty, I’m going to hold you to it.” He quashed the sense of delight that fluttered up at the prospect, because that was what it was: _delight_.

“Done.” Alistair _promised_. “On my word as King of Ferelden, First of the Bannorn, and Lord of the Landsmeet: I will give you the head of whoever took a contract out against the Grey Wardens, just like Esmerelle before them.” He had to push his luck, Morrigan and Zevran could scold him for it later, he _had_ to test his luck.

“Perhaps House Guerrin will aid in covering the costs of negotiations?” He asked, keeping his face neutral and playing to Alistair’s hope of cooperation. “It _is_ their son at risk and it could be taken as a balance against my aid in easing Lady Rowan’s afflictions.”

“I like that idea,” Alistair agreed, but then his expression immediately fell into a scowl. “But I’d like it more if it hadn’t come from your mouth. Whatever game you’re playing at, Soren, cut it out for two seconds and _focus_. My cousin’s missing and I want him back almost as much as any of you do.” He referenced the Wardens still standing behind him with that comment, and Soren gave a polite nod to show his understanding.

“Dismissed, all of you, just-” Alistair was conflicted, but with Eamon and Teagan standing right there Soren couldn’t tell him about Kieran, couldn’t explain anything about what was going on. The former Warden swung a hand out at the doors, and when Eamon tried to argue with him- “I said get out! I’m not staying in here I’m not _talking_ to any of you anymore! I need to think. Go! Off with you!”

“Yes, your Majesty.” Eamon grunted.

“My king.” Teagan and his brother turned to leave, and Alistair huffed loudly with his hands in the air as the older men walked off.

“I’ll summon you later,” Alistair told Soren, and began walking past the thrones. “Anora I’ll- be in the garden, or the study, or- Maker I don’t know!”

“I will see this business ended, husband, and then join you.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” and with a snappy bluster to the two footmen guarding the door that led further in and up through the castle, Alistair left and the men kept the doors open, watching their Queen until she gestured for them to step outside and shut the way again.

“Warden Commander,” Queen Anora said in a firm voice. “I believe my lord husband dismissed your companions to wait outside.” Soren looked to her upon her throne, and then nodded.

“He certainly did, your Highness.” And with a look back at the Wardens and tranquil behind him, Soren nodded to dismiss them. They seemed uneasy with the order but took it anyways, exiting the hall down the same wide doors the two Arls had vanished through. With a wave of her hand Queen Anora sent the guards there outside as well, the doors slamming shut with an echoing boom. The two of them were left with only the smoke and rumble of the chambers’ braziers.

“I received your message.” Queen Anora Mac Tir, Teyrna of Gwaren, daughter of Loghain the Traitor and wife of one of Soren’s closest friends said to him, seated straight and tall in the body of her throne. She was robed in finely embroidered white wool and soft leather, gemstones stitched down her bodice and heavy gold rings twisted between her fingers. The furs ruffled around her shoulders and long neck were warm and proper for the heavy winter outside and permeating the castle, and her heavy blonde hair was coiled in thick ropes of braids and gemstones. “You’re calling in your debt, Grey Warden. Yet I cannot help but wonder… why? You have the situation with your missing Warden in hand.”

“I have half the situation in hand, your Majesty.”

“Only half?” She questioned, perfectly still atop her throne where she felt no need to gesture or fiddle with anything. “You’ve already issued ultimatums of war and this latest violent message of impatience to the Orlesian menace squatting on Fereldan lands, and you have both my husband and Teyrn Cousland’s full support for any military action you take against them. As for your missing Warden, you have contacts with the Antivan Crows along with sufficient funds and support from your King to follow through to a source. You have no need for a Queen.”

“You know whom I suspect in this.”

“My dear Grey Warden, the only person who does _not_ know whom you suspect is my dear husband.” Anora’s voice was always properly used, she didn’t whisper or husk, always spoke from the bottom of her lungs and projected her words smoothly. “His loyalties blind him in these matters: to you, to the Grey Wardens, and to House Guerrin. He cannot handle this conflict.”

“That is why I wish to end it quickly.”

“Do not lie so boldly to me, Warden.” She said quickly, a sharpness to her voice and a narrow edge in her eyes. “This is not for Alistair. Tell me why.”

“Because they have taken my son.” It was difficult to shock Anora with something, it almost never happened and Soren made a point of never trying.

Truly, he preferred to avoid his Queen whenever possible and liked to think she shared the same strategy regarding him. He’d taken a mortal vow against her father, disgraced, fought, and executed him in this very hall over ten years ago: but Anora herself was not her father. She was Queen of Ferelden and perhaps the best one they’d ever had. Alistair supported _her_ reign, not the other way around. The only reason she’d been so quiet and withdrawn today had been because these matters were personal to him and involved two people she hated coming nearly to blows.

“…You have no heir: your son is not recognized by the Chantry.” As if he did not _know that_.

“It is not a political attack, Anora, it is personal: they have _my son_.” Twelve years old and the splitting image of his mother, but with all the tricks and tendencies that Soren himself had used throughout his years at the Circle to get his way and keep it. “The only house that would think to take _my son_ is the one whose former heir serves the Grey Wardens against their wishes. They took my _child_ when my back was turned so they could stop me: could control me with the threat of harming him.”

“Have they?” Had House Guerrin tried to control him yet? No, but it was only a matter of time. Dare he say it Anora gave him a look that threatened concern, _sympathy_. “I confess, Warden Surana, I have… never seen you act this way.”

“ _They took my son!_ ” He shouted and it didn’t help, it was loud but it didn’t stop his heart from beginning to kick and roll in his chest, the dizziness of panic that saying it again and again kept forcing up through him. His son was gone, his son was gone, his _son was gone_ … “Anora, the only reason I could bring my men this far south was because I had Alistair’s orders to follow. I _need_ a higher power than the Arlings to let me move closer to Redcliffe. Cousland has no stake in this: you are the _only_ other Teyrn, you are the Queen of Ferelden, and I _need my Queen_.”

“Why not say as much when Alistair was here?”

“And give them the satisfaction of seeing me like- like _this?_ ” Composure breaking, fragmenting away like crumbling chalk. His heart would not calm and his teeth were grinding, fear kicking in his chest, anger crawling up his back.

Soren had told his love that he would follow her when rumours of dragon attacks spread across the Hinterlands. They both knew however that rumours were slow and travelling via the Vigil’s Eluvian to reach the south would have over-shot her too far south into the Kocari wilds or west into the heights of the Frostback mountains. She had to travel by land whether on foot or by air in whatever form moved swiftest, and she had to inspire enough fear and terror in the area to justify an armed response from the north. If either of them found Kieran before reuniting in the Hinterlands, there were ways to communicate as much.

Every day they waited was another day without Kieran, another day he had to stay with the hired men who’d snatched him from them. Soren _needed_ to move south.

“Is your son in Redcliffe?” Anora asked him.

“I don’t know, but my Warden is.”

“How do you know that?”

“Connor is a skilled, resourceful mage.” He said, throwing secrets at her until he could get her to agree. This was not something he _wanted_ , it was what he _needed_. “He’s learning how to approach and speak to the benevolent Spirits of the Fade and used one to speak to me last night. Redcliffe wasn’t mentioned but Rowan Guerrin was: wherever she is, he’s close by.”

“How does that help you find your boy?”

“I find Connor and I find the Crows keeping him.” Soren explained. “They tell me what I want to know or they die. Once I’m inside Redcliffe castle no one will dare harm Kieran and I won’t leave until I have him _back_. No violence against Guerrin blood without violence against mine first, but I will return the favour ten-fold if challenged, my Queen, I swear to you.”

“And how…” Her shock had settled, and any unease Anora felt with any of this scheming was completely hidden now. She was no closer to a trustworthy person than he was, but this was Ferelden and noble word once given would not be broken. He just needed her to agree. “Do you ever plan on getting close enough to Arl Guerrin’s wife and daughter to pose that threat?”

“By any means necessary, your Majesty.”

“You ask for civil war, Warden.”

“I ask for the means to _avoid_ civil war,” he insisted. “Redcliffe and Amaranthine are across the map from each other, neither of us can declare war and march an army across the entire Bannorn to attack the other. House Guerrin attacked me with hired assassins, I will fight back on my own: all I need is your blessing.”

“I send you south, and I ensure my husband keeps the promise he made to you just now in this chamber…” She reviewed the terms in her own words, and then tilted her chin just-so to appraise him. “That is two favours you ask of me, choose one.”

“I offer you my debt in exchange for the second.” No hesitation, he _needed_ this. “Whatever my son’s life is worth to me, I offer that to you without condition.”

She considered it. Soren _watched_ the offer tumble and turn itself over in her mind, her careful thoughts manipulating what was before her.

“For your son’s life… What if I stripped you of your titles?”

“You could take them.” All of them, even Archmage.

“If I took your lands?”

“I would surrender them.” Down to the last square inch of Vigil’s Keep.

“If I commanded you to exile?”

“I would go.” And never return to the land of his birth.

“If I humiliated you, disgraced you, wiped you and your accomplishments from history, and left you to be forgotten?”

“This is my _child_ , Anora.” He told her, gritting his teeth hard. His pride _ached_ answering her questions but there was an instinctive _burn_ in his soul that wouldn’t let him answer any other way. It choked him, the fear of what he’d lose if he said no to her now, if he let her find a limit he wouldn’t extend or a depth he couldn’t reach. “I held him in my arms when his mother gave him to me. I watched him take his first steps, cut his teeth, learn to speak. I soothed his nightmares and nursed his fevers- he is my _son..._ ” And he would do anything- anything- _anything…_

“Take my titles,” he pulled his staff of his back and let the bloodstone rod clatter loudly to the stones next to him, “Take my lands,” next went the shield, his herald landing face-down on the floor. “Send me from my homeland,” his sword, a blade wielded by an elven warrior in the Deep Roads, ages dead now, dropped like dead weight along with the golden dagger from the First Warden. He couldn’t remove his oath, the pendant hidden against his skin, because it was trapped tightly under his armour. His gauntlets fell instead. “Wipe away my memory, just…”

Anything, anything, _anything_. Even if that included Morrigan witnessing what he was about to do, which she wasn’t, but even then he still would have let one knee touch the floor, then the other… and then his scarred hands…

“ _Please…_ ” He grovelled. He hated it but he grovelled. He would go further, place his weight on his elbows and his hands palm up to the sky: an old Tevinter pose of supplication, forced on elves for a thousand ugly, tainted years. He would do it, he _would_ , he’d humiliate himself to get the answer he wanted, the pledge he needed, because it was _his son…_

Soren closed his eyes, teeth locked. She wasn’t saying anything. He curled one hand against the cold winter stones and made his arm bend, lowering himself down until his elbow-

“ _Stop_.” Anora halted him and he quickly put his palm back in place, sparing himself the additional humiliation. “Face me, but remain on your knees.” Soren sat up, pulling his shoulders back and setting his jaw firmly, hands resting in his lap and seated on the floor between his discarded weapons.

Her Majesty was _not_ looking at him, she was staring directly to her left, towards Alistair’s throne, and had her chin resting on the heel of her palm, leaning on her throne. She’d crossed one leg over the other, discomfort painted down every line of her frame.

“Watching you beg is not as satisfying as I had always hoped it would be,” she muttered bitterly to the smoke-clouded air. “My debt to you is cleared, and yours to me is established.”

“Yes, my Queen.” She looked at him, hard and bitter, disgust cutting lines down her fair cheeks and chin, thinning her lips like an old woman.

“I am a firm but fair Queen, Surana.” She told him, both hands resting on the arms of her throne again. “Childless, but not heartless. You will wait until Alistair has spoken with you again. I doubt it will happen, but if Eamon can be convinced or forced to bring Rowan north to Denerim then you will wait _here_ to have the child delivered to you. So long as you are at court, your enemies will not have cause to harm your son, and once Rowan is delivered you will have the bargaining power you so desire.”

“And if Eamon is not convinced, my Queen?” Soren asked her, still resting on his knees.

“You were the sword House Guerrin wielded to cut down my father in his darkest hour, the same people who have been trying to tear me from my throne since I first took it next to Cailan.” She told him, her voice dropping to a threatening and low hum. It had been in this room, with Soren now kneeling where Loghain had last stood. “I will not hesitate to use you the same way they did. If House Guerrin withdraws into Castle Redcliffe, you will ride south with the blessings of your Childless Queen, Mother to the Blighted, Patron of Widows, Wife of House Theirin, Daughter of the River Dane, Teyrna of Gwaren, Queen Anora Mac Tir of Ferelden. On _my_ orders, my sword will find and recover Rowan Guerrin, and return her, _alive_ , to Denerim.” So that Anora would hold the child, fine. As long as Kieran remained unharmed Soren would not rush to harm the girl: _this_ was a pain he could sympathize with. However…

“And should an assassin’s contract bearing a Grandmaster’s seal name a member of House Guerrin as the hand that holds the knife to my son’s throat?”

“Then my Royal husband will keep his word to you.” Good. “And should Alistair falter, Warden, then you will be the sword which parts heads from shoulders.” _Yes._

“For my son’s life, my Queen, your sword is ready.” He lifted one leg enough to plant his foot on the ground, still on one knee, but then bowed his head with a fist to his heart.             

“To avenge my father’s death, I name you a Sword of Gwaren, Champion of House Mac Tir.” She announced briskly, without call for witnesses: noble words, once spoken, would not be broken. “Collect your arms and rise, Surana, let us see if you can carry the weight of another title.” Oh, he could.

For Kieran? He _would_.

* * *

 

Rashvine was a spindly red plant, a climbing vine with long, slender red leaves all coated in fibrous hairs. It thrived in Ferelden’s cold wet damp, crawling over bare rocks and sturdy trees. It had no healing properties, there was no plausible use for it in elixers, potions, poultices, lotions, or anything of the sort. The name was its explanation: wherever rashvine touched human flesh, it _burned._

It felt like ripping. His scorched skin was pulled unbearably tight in patches across the soft undersides of his arms, the sensitive back of his neck behind each ear, the tops of his thighs and the backs of his calves. He felt the toxins burn him, blisters swelling until they burst under the tension of rashvine leaves layered under thick linen wraps. There was no thrashing or rolling to escape the burn, fighting just made the swelling worse, forced the tears to run deeper.

Connor was too numb from embrium when they started to have a chance of fighting off the hands that tortured him. They started when he was still heavy and foggy, magic a far-away concept that was drowned out by the artificial warmth of the drugs clogging his veins. They kept his arms and wrists bound behind him, legs hobbled, and placed the violence against his skin before he could even feel what was happening.

He didn’t know how close to dawn the castle had been before Rowan set her fire under him. He didn’t know if the taint could react to something he’d understood but been unable to feel: had the taint woken him up faster, brought him to full lucidity? He wanted to say yes but the fact that he wasn’t _sure_? He didn’t _know?_

Wondering after the taint distracted him, distracted from the fear and the pain and the screaming, because he was screaming. He knew he was yelling, thrashing, flailing in a new room that was not the warm, quiet, fire-lit space where they’d kept him for days, or weeks, or months already. Connor wasn’t on a bed and he wasn’t by a fire, he wasn’t warm, he wasn’t able to hide behind an illusion of safety. There was no more balance, no more room for negotiation.

He was in a cold, circular stone chamber. It felt grey, ashen and old. No furniture, not really, he was laying on canvas with something under him to keep the thrashes from bludgeoning his head on the stones. There was light and he was wet, windows either open or smashed to let cold winter wind howl through the space. He was in a tower, someplace high enough for him to see nothing but hear the wind, the constant wind, wind with flakes of snow and shards of rain that splattered on the floor and cut across him, making it worse. Connor was in rags and he writhed and he couldn’t make it stop.

“ _Stop this! Stop! I didn’t do anything!_ ” He howled, because he could feel the embrium thinning in his blood and if the taint was burning through it he couldn’t feel the effects through the screams of his skin swelling and splitting under the wraps. He couldn’t rationalize it, couldn’t calm down and look at himself. Rashvine wasn’t deadly, it was awful but it wasn’t deadly, his limbs weren’t being flayed- it was the embrium withdrawal. He was used to being numbed, the embrium was making the pain worse as it faded it had to, it had to, it had to, it had to- “ _I didn’t- I didn’t!”_

Stop, stop, stop, make it stop, let him sleep-

Someone stepped on him, a heavy boot that slammed down on his chest, forced him down, rushed the air out of his lungs. It was a Crow, not the Talon, one of the Crows. He couldn’t see which one, saw only the fall of a cloak and the brush of fur to keep the guard safe from the cold that was chipping Connor away one frigid degree at a time.

“So we should just let you go unpunished for embarrassing Talon Diego?” The voice was a rush of noise between the wind and Connor’s own wheezing breaths. “We do things the Arl’s way now, Grey Warden. You will not go sneaking around behind anyone’s back again, no midnight soirees, no secret lessons. You are not well-liked in this place, Warden, do you know the _stories_ we have heard? From the guards? The servants? The townsfolk? You were right to hide among your fellow mages during the war, for the castle would have killed you in short order.”

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he was being ripped apart and frozen solid and now Connor _couldn’t breathe…_

“You summoned a demon that butchered women in their beds, made their corpses rise to prey on their children,” the Crow taunted him and _no_. He hadn’t summoned it- he’d been _tricked_ , possessed, he- “Those children are grown and they have swords for you, mage. They remember nights trapped in the village chantry while your minions fed on the flesh of their families.” He hadn’t meant to, Connor had never meant for- “They sent you to a prison tower and now you are here, teaching your witching to their precious girl: how do you think they feel knowing that you have been meddling in her dreams?

“No- _no- I had no choice-_ ” They’d kept him sleep, kept him trapped in the Fade- he hadn’t had a choice! She was a child and she’d been surrounded by demons. Connor had killed the ones that came for him but he couldn’t just abandon her! The same thing would have happened all over again and it would have been his fault all over again because _this time he knew better_. “I had to- had to- I _had to-_ ” Had to find Rowan in the Fade, had to try and help her somehow, had to-

“Destroy Redcliffe all over again?” _No_ \- Maker, _no_ … “That is what they whisper, what they know lingers in your heart. The longer we keep you the bolder they become. How long until he breaks?” _No._ “How long until the good little enchanter is ready to take his blood magic and his demons and murder us all for his own sense of power?” _No._ “How dare we, the ones spared the Maker’s Curse, demand service from one who revels in the blood of innocence?” _No!_

“ _Stop- no- stop-_ ” The foot came off his chest, swung back and kicked him in the face. Connor’s world twisted with the bludgeoning pain, neck wrenched with arms still bound.

Cold water showered down his neck and shoulders, shocking him so hard his chest seized and there was no way to breathe for several paralyzing seconds. He hacked and almost vomited in fear, taking a ragged breath as footsteps echoed and a door banged shut. The cold tried to sooth the swollen heat of the rashvine, but as he placed his head down on the molted, soaking canvas he only felt his teeth chattering and the embrium fading faster and faster, dragging him down into withdrawal. The heat of the vines faded with the last of the sleeping drug, leaving him in shambles at the mercy of the winter wind, eyes blind against the flurry of sharp, ripping pain and callouses down his throat.

Hands, he didn’t know whose or how long he was left alone first, but there were hands again. He was pulled onto his stomach, linen wraps cut away, arm bonds slashed carelessly enough to nick his skin, his body flushed with more cold water that made him convulse and howl with the hope that his throbbing heart would just stop trying. Just stop and let him die.

Kicked again, on his back. Female voice, thin fingers hard and digging at his chin, thighs in hard leather that spread and sat over his gut, crushed him, _hurt_. Something about sex, about his scars, a strap of leather at the raw skin behind his neck, and tension that made him sit up. More words, jumbled sounds, disappointment and a slap that restarted the bleeding in his mouth from the kick.

“Disappointing.” And something dry, something rough and cold and fibrous at his mouth. She wedged his jaw open and with her thumb she jammed it down his throat until he choked. He couldn’t swallow and on his back he was going to die when cold water came flooding down his throat, filled his nose, made him gag and eyes tear up and everything hurt. Rolled leaves- embrium? He couldn’t make it easier on himself he just had to hope it would all go into his lungs and kill him.

Somehow his body swallowed, and her body went away, and he knew that it was embrium but also something _else_ , somethi-

He vomited violence and poison, rashvine cutting bloody sores up his throat and robbing him of the embrium leaves’ partial effects. Enough of it stayed down for him to coil his arms in agony, the tower filling with darkness and the cold deepening faster as Connor’s body was bled and burned from the _inside_ now.

No escape. He couldn’t heal, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t live like this- not much longer like this.

They didn’t let him sleep. Wouldn’t let him escape.

He was dying.

_Dying._

And a voice that was not a voice said:

_“I want to help…”_

But Connor was _dying…_

* * *

 

House Surana, swollen with Wardens and crowded with gear, night falling and a visitor in his office, sitting on the pristine desk when he entered the room.

“I have bad news, obvious news, and excellent news.” Dressed all in black without his customary smile, accent tugging the words over a dark undertow that was not appreciated. Arms folded over his chest, the hilts of several blades visible.

“Which one of those is the fact that I don’t see Kieran with you?”

“The obvious news- no, Soren, sit down.” He shut the door but he would not be told what to do. Where was Kieran? “ _Sit._ ”

“Do _not_ handle me, Zevran.” Not with words, not with hands, not with that flutter of sympathy. Sympathy would not bring his son back! “Don’t tell me you’re here empty-handed.”

“As I already said, I have news.” News was not results! “I don’t have Kieran, and I don’t have his location either. That’s two parts of it.”

“ _Zevran!”_

“ _Brother, do not lose your head.”_ Words spun in Antivan, a language he had to stop and listen to, had to think through, a mental exercise that made his fingers twitch, outrage mingling with fear, panic desperate to break free in the form of magic to scare this unending nightmare away. “ _Tomorrow you will take me to court to meet with Ambassador Rodrigo of Antiva. He and I have already spoken several times since I arrived in Denerim and he has important news from our homeland.”_ The words blurred and tangled together, a mess of sounds that forced him to close his eyes and pull them apart, spreading the meaning out properly.

 _“_ Trade, Zevran, _Trade;_ I can hardly follow you,” he complained.

“ _And thus you are made calm.”_ Soren was too overwhelmed with everything to bother with a reply. “ _What you must know now is that your enemy has made a dire mistake: Grandmaster Ignacio is dead.”_

“Who?”

“Ignacio.” Oh yes, just repeat the name! That would solve _everything!_ “All our years together and I have only seen you like this twice- is this truly worse than the march to Denerim? Than the catastrophe at your Circle?”

 _“Yes!_ ” He shouted, and Zevran raised a calming hand that he wanted to slap down. “Yes it is! This is worse, Zevran! This is _my son_ and _my fault_ and I won’t have-”

“It is no more your fault than it is mine or Morrigan’s.” _Don’t-_ “Or Connor’s, or Nathaniel’s- do you blame _them_ for this? Would you put the blame for these weeks on Connor?”

“ _Of course not!_ ”

“Then stop letting his family get into your head like this.” Zevran slid off the desk, walked straight to him and took Soren’s face between his hands, putting their heads together despite Soren grabbing his wrists and grunting _no_. “You have a plan, you have strategies already in motion, you _do_ know what is happening and you _are_ taking steps to make it end. Stop this.”

“Not until I have him back.” He closed his eyes and _just…_

“No, before then,” his friend scolded. “Control this panic before you make a mistake with it, Soren.” Zevran didn’t know what he’d said to Anora yet- hah! Wouldn’t that dagger come back to skewer him at some point? “You will come out of this with both Connor and Kieran back at the Vigil where they belong, you need only trust yourself half as much as I or any of your men already do. You will see us through this, brother.”

“Why are you here if you don’t have Kieran and you say Rodrigo knows enough for me to meet with him?”

“Because once His Majesty orders the Ambassador to a vital task, we will have our proof and you can spring your trap on your enemies. The house which took the contract against you and the Wardens is House Valisti: Rodrigo can explain how we know that and much more to you and Alistair tomorrow.” Soren repeated his question, eyes tightly shut, hands still on his friend’s armoured wrists but not fighting with him anymore.

“If you know that then, Zevran, why are you _here?_ ”

“Because the first time I saw you hurt like this you had Morrigan to sooth you after the blood and chaos of the Circle,” his friend answered, bringing his voice down to a murmur. “And the second time you had the Archdemon and a burning city and a country in chaos to keep you focused when she left you. This time you do not have your lover and you are teetering at the edge of failure to your Wardens. You need someone to trust, and so for my dearest and most intimate friend, Soren: I am here.”

 _“I hate this…_ ” Zevran’s lips touched his forehead and it made something give, forced a break that began to leak and let loose the pain behind the panic. “ _I hate being like this…”_ With tears- disgraceful, disloyal, disgusting signs of-

“Then be wretched in confidence, _hermano_ ,” the Antivan word for _‘brother_ ’, whispered against his hair because his head was bowed and he could not breathe for the horrible pain squeezing out of him. His grip on Zevran’s shoulder and arm was the last thing keeping him upright, he wanted this to _end_. “Set your wards and sleep knowing you are still trusted and respected and loved. Weep tonight and rest, my brother, and tomorrow you will see the crude mistakes your enemies have blundered through trying to bring you down this far. You will be whole again soon, Soren, I swear it. This will be over, and your family will be safe.”

“ _Thank you…”_

His brother kissed his forehead again, and he let Zevran help him to bed.


	31. Sleepless and Longing

 

 

“There has been, what we call in Antiva, a _Renouncement_ among the Crows.” Ambassador Rodrigo Balasti of Antiva City announced before His Majesty King Alistair Theirin, His Grace Eamon Guerrin of Denerim, His Grace Teagan Guerrin of Redcliffe, His Grace Soren Surana of Amaranthine, and Zevran.

Zevran really didn’t need to be here but he’d wanted to come, and sometimes that was all he needed to say to get Soren to go ahead with a bad idea. Ah, friendship!

He wanted to be here and watch House Guerrin _squirm…_ And if they didn’t then he was ready to hunt down whoever else could be responsible for these affronts- but that was not going to happen.

“Alright, I’ll ask the hundred silver question: what is a Renouncement?” Alistair asked.

They were not in the courtly hall: Anora was handling the nobles of the Bannorn quite handily several floors below them. _This_ was a private salon of the royal wing, a cozy place with thick rugs carpeting the stone floor, elaborate tapestries fluttering in the soft warm wind of the roaring fireplace.

“Quite simply, your Highness,” Rodrigo smoothly explained, “A Renouncement is when the Crows hesitate in their constant maneuvers and simply ask, _‘who did this?’_. Grandmaster Ignacio of Denerim was relieved of his life less than a week ago and no house has claimed the assassination as their own. It is a disruption of good business, especially for the Houses currently involved in Ferelden.”

“Of which there are how many?” Alistair followed up, although his eyes did roam to Zevran himself for a moment. Oho, suspicious now, was he?

“Three,” was the answer. “And the most prominent of which is currently in the midst of two contracts.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the Grandmaster’s cache held his copies of four contracts. If they were complete then they would have been forwarded to an appropriate vault in Antiva.” Rodrigo explained and Zevran wet his lips in excitement, sorely tempted to reach around the armoured mage next to him and rib Soren gently, get him to stop looking so sleepless and dower. “One bears the mark of House Episco, another House Vichenza, and finally: two carry the seals of House Valisti, including the additional mark of Fifth Talon Diego Valisti of Rialto.”

Zevran did not watch Alistair or Rodrigo or Soren, he watched the Guerrin brothers. He saw how Eamon’s breaths went shallow, how Teagan’s eyes circled the room and when they found Zevran the assassin spread his lips in a most sinister way. Guilt, _guilt_ : he could taste it and it was taking everything he was not to draw a blade and let the Arls’ blood answer for their crimes.

“So someone killed your Grandmaster and you don’t know who.” Alistair summarized, and the Ambassador nodded. “What does that mean for the contracts? Why did whoever kill him leave them?”

“They didn’t, your Majesty.” Yes, this was an interesting part: “Ignacio’s ledger, accounts, and unfinished contracts were all destroyed when he died, his complex here in the city had been thoroughly ransacked, leaving only his hidden cache which was discovered and opened with the cooperation of his brother and… a friend.” Alistair looked over at him again and Zevran gave a pleased smile.

Truth be told, Zevran had arrived in Denerim fully prepared to take the Grandmaster by whatever was soft and sensitive enough to twist and tear off of him looking for information. Finding Ignacio’s hideout off the Denerim market ransacked by men and combed over with Crow Agents had not been a pleasing sight. He was a staunch believer that people stopped being useful when they were dead: Zevran’s issues had always been against House Arainai and any Crow cell foolish enough to try and track down the Black Shadow responsible for the house’s collapse ten years ago. Ignacio and he had not been _friendly_ , but as long as Ignacio’s clients in Ferelden were satisfied then the Grandmaster had not been as exclusive as the Crows back home may have liked to believe. Zevran had worked with him a few times, and paid good money at other points in their long relationship to keep an eye on things as they unfolded.

He had missed these contracts in their infancy, and for that Zevran had no one to blame but himself… and House Guerrin.

“Alright, so we’ve got the contracts, excellent.” Alistair announced with a forced smile: he knew there was something wrong already. “Who ordered my cousin kidnapped from the Grey Wardens?”

“It is as of yet uncertain, but they most certainly hired the Crows of House Valisti,” Rodrigo answered, and that was where the ease of the conversation ran thin. “They so far are the only house to have answered the Renouncement, meaning Talon Diego who put his mark on the contract is also here in Ferelden. The rest of the houses must answer from Antiva and there simply has not been enough time for those messages to arrive. Whoever killed Ignacio may find the Talon’s ire turned against them if his business in Ferelden is interrupted because of this.”

“But who hired him?” Alistair pressed again, and Rodrigo drew a deep breath before allowing himself to turn and look at Zevran, inviting him into this conversation. Curse him, Zevran had wanted to keep his eyes on his enemies, not the King.

“The contracts are written in cyphers.” He explained, despite how he was loath to do so with Soren watching him silently, taking in the information slowly with his exhausted eyes. “Only the seals on the documents are clear, the rest of the information from the names of who ordered it to the amounts they are willing to pay are obscured by codes and substitutions.” Meaning that although Zevran had held both contracts in his own hands not three days ago, he had no idea which of the two was for Kieran, where he was being held, what conditions had to be met for him to be either returned to his father or killed. It was agony. Was the Talon directly involved with the task of keeping Connor hidden from the Wardens, or was he the one standing over Kieran?

“Then what good are they?” Teagan Guerrin finally spoke, and Zevran rather hated him for it. “All you have are bits of wax and paper in this case. If this _‘Grandmaster’_ as you call him is dead then there is no way to break the codes.”

“Oh, that is hardly so.” Rodrigo corrected him in a light tone. “The language at the base of the agreement will be formal Antivan. Conditions of payment and supplied manpower will be encoded in House Valisti’s usual methods, with additional subterfuge provided by the Talon’s close influence over the contract. Master Ignacio’s cypher is sophisticated, but it will only be a matter of time before it is broken. Moreover we are not looking to unlock the fine nuances of the business, we are looking for the names of who hired which house for what purpose.”

“How do you know so much about these fiends and criminals, _Ambassador?_ ” Eamon Guerrin snapped at him, an aggressive old dog who thought his bark was something to be feared by those whose bite was worse. “I’d dare to call it distasteful for Antiva’s representative to speak of killers and cut-throats with such familiarity.” Rodrigo took a particular kind of offense to this.

“But your Grace, how could one expect any man in my position to do his job without knowing who in Antiva City to address?” Rodrigo questioned in that smooth, steady way of his. “Ferelden enjoys a refreshing culture of direct confrontation, but at times things become over-simplified. Not every Crow is an Assassin, Arl Guerrin, and not every assassin is a Crow.”

“Soren,” Alistair broke in, addressing the mage at Zevran’s side and cutting through the brewing conflict between Ambassador and Arl in front of him. “These people are talking about _two_ contracts from the same Crows who are holding Connor, what’s the second one for?”

“I can only make assumptions, Alistair.” Soren was tired. Despite Zevran’s insistence his friend had not slept well last night. He had refused to place his wards or take precautions against entering the Fade, insisting that he was trying to reach Connor with his spirit friend’s help. He’d woken up almost every hour of the night due to demons and the disorienting nature of the Fade and for his trouble had received no rest and also no word from the other mage. It was no simple task for two mages to cross paths in their dreams: certainly possible, but far from guaranteed. He would have been better off getting a proper night’s rest and the dark circles under his eyes gave too much away. “When the contracts are fully decoded and translated, then we’ll know for sure.”

He didn’t want to say it in front of Eamon and Teagan, and trying to wrestle Alistair into a meeting without one or both of them was becoming an incredible challenge. Soren’s patience were legendary, Zevran’s were _not_.

“Then it would be best for you to return to Vigil’s Keep,” Eamon announced and Zevran felt heat bathe down his shoulders, his anger rising up fast and lethal. “There are rumours circulating throughout the city that an army of Grey Wardens has settled in the peoples’ midst, and I know it’s your doing.”

“Eamon, calm down,” Alistair scolded, and the edge of a hand that touched Zevran’s wrist said the same thing from Soren. “There are hardly enough Grey Wardens to give those rumours any weight.”

“Alistair, there is an entire encampment of them outside the city!” Eamon charged again and oh no, Zevran wanted to make sure that tongue of his stopped wagging. “I have already had the city guards inquire and the men say they are here under Surana’s command, they fly his banner and everything.”

“Entire encampment of what, four soldiers?” The King scoffed.

“Ten,” Soren answered, entering the conversation with exhaustion haunting his words but no fear to blunt them. “They guard and care for the mounts who could not be brought into my estate here in the city.”

“Eh- but how many is _that?_ ”

“Enough,” was not the right answer, but it sounded _so good_ to Zevran. “In light of Warden Connor’s abduction, I offered the Joining to enough willing recruits to bolster our numbers. Between Crows and the Orlesians, I needed more soldiers.”

“And then you marched them all down here!” Eamon’s skin went hot and red, perfect for slicing if Soren would only _let him_. His fingers ached around the handle of his daggers.

“I can hardly search a city with ten men,” his friend rebuked. “There are fifty Grey Wardens in Denerim, hardly an army.”

“But still entirely unnecessary!” Eamon roared and Alistair was shocked, trying to get Soren to repeat the number. “You think I did not have the city guard already search for signs of where the boy went?” Oh _shut up_ , “This is an invasion of the capital! You risk treason!”

There we go, there was Zevran’s line.

“ _Treason_ accuses the man who had the guards search with their eyes closed and hands behind their _backs!_ ” Zevran cut in, and how he wished there was blood to follow. This wasn’t his place and he did not _care_. Eamon was backed into a corner and Zevran would not tolerate him lashing out at the Grey Wardens and their Commander when Soren was being _more_ than simply patient with him. “Whoever paid for this has means, _Eamon_. They have wealth enough to spare hundreds of gold a _day_ to keep these operations of theirs running.”

“Keep your vulture in line, Surana, or _I’ll_ -” Zevran snapped his wrist and a metal dart bloomed between Eamon’s feet. Soren took his other arm hard in one hand, an explicit order to hold painted through the gesture, but through clenched teeth Zevran would not be _quiet._

“Crows do not come _cheap,_ ” he hissed, “and _Talons_ are worth a princely sum! It is _only_ a matter of time before the Landsmeet discovers _someone_ cannot afford their taxes because of the deep pit of deceit they have cast their wealth into!”

“Do you _dare_ accuse _me_ of-?”

“I dare!” He shouted, “I dare, and you will _hear me_ because I already have _all the proof I need!_ ”

“That’s enough, Zevran!” Stay out of this, Alistair!

“I will see these rats _drowned_ ,” He snarled at the Fereldan King. He shook Soren’s hand off of him and was well aware that if Soren was so very upset with him for how this was going, he would have stopped him already. “Arainai was not safe from me, Alistair, I stay my blades as a _courtesy_ and nothing more!”

“I am _just_ as angry as you are!” Alistair shouted back at him from a place of ignorance, and Zevran looked at Soren, glared at him, teeth bare, _demanding_ the right to just say-

Soren nodded to him. Assent, _finally._

“The second contract dragged my nephew screaming from his bed and out of the Vigil through a thunder storm,” Zevran announced, and it caused a visible ache to pass over his friend’s face. It shamed Soren but it _needed_ to be said. Zevran looked to Alistair again and saw the stupefied look on his idiot face. “You are _nowhere_ near as angry as I, my friend.”

“So this is all a ruse then!” Teagan barked and Maker Help Him Zevran wanted to lash out with a knife through the fool’s throat. “Not a single part of this has been for Connor, it’s all Surana rampaging across Ferelden with the excuse of his missing bastard!”

“ _Teagan!_ ” Alistair shouted, standing and rightly putting himself between Zevran and the fool brothers he was going to _slice into tiny, tiny pieces_ -!

Alistair was shouting and Soren was speaking, telling Zevran not to advance the way he wanted to, to put down the knife that was bare and sharp in his hand. Andraste’s own hovering ghost would have had a hard sell before her to make him take mercy, but Soren’s hand was twisted hard through one of his belts and he wrestled Zevran close enough to him that against the yelling of three angry humans, he heard the Archmage hissing into his ear:

“ _Shadow Nathaniel and his Wardens to Redcliffe, the new ones with rough armor. Feint to the north and then cross west. Go fast. Move quiet. Keep your colours hidden.”_ Sneak attack? He would bleed Eamon _dry_ first-! “ _Do not assault Redcliffe without me there._ ”

“ _No! If his son is **missing-!** ” _Alistair shouted,

“ _And how do you know it won’t be his **own** name on those contracts!”_ Eamon’s voice.

“ _You cannot let these factions run your nation for you, Alistair! Ferelden cannot have Grey Wardens just_ -” Teagan’s voice.

“I will find Talon Valisti,” Zevran promised softly. “I will find Kieran.”

And without another word but still _bleeding_ aggression, Zevran left the chamber in its chaos.

He did as his friend asked him, but not before throwing the bodies of two Redcliffe Knights into the River Drakon first.

Twenty Wardens and an elven assassin rode north before nightfall, doubled west under cover of night, and were south of Denerim by dawn. By that next afternoon, they nearly passed unawares when two travellers sped at a hard canter moving north and Zevran recognized the spears and shield on the woman’s saddle.

“Athras!”

The whole company stopped on the Imperial Highway, under the early afternoon light. Two road-weary Wardens revealed a mage’s ring and Warden’s oath to him, and Zevran wanted blood. He _very nearly_ rode back north with them to find Eamon’s wrinkled throat to gouge open with a hot knife bathed in something that would _burn_.

“Hassick,” he said, a hatred raging in his heart that Zevran could only recall feeling so strongly once before. But Rinna had not been a _child_ trapped in a web of powerful men. Rinna and Connor both deserved better than what their blood had wrought them, but Kieran should _never_ have been involved. “You get these to Surana, and if anyone so much as _breathes_ a word of protest on the matter then you pour _this_ ,” a little black flask of something _particularly_ horrid. “on your bolts and fire it through their hearts. Understood?”

“With pleasure, sir.”

* * *

 

Connor did not fall asleep. He did not enter the Fade.

He wasted through a day and night, and another day, and another night… and something happened that he could not quite explain.

 _I want to help_.

It was magic but not _his_ magic. Connor feared possession only until he realized that this was something near him, not _within_. It conjured a memory, and he fled into it to escape what was happening to the rest of him.

He remembered the Circle Library: the smell of dust and crumbling stone, the particular sweetness of old book-binder’s glue and stiff vellum. He remembered the burnt wax of minor spells, the thick grain of the library tables, the hard tops of the apprentice’s seats. The red and gold of Enchanter Leorah’s robes, the long sheet of cheesecloth she used to explain the Veil to him.

An apple on one side, her hand on the other. Connor was the apple and the hand was that of a demon. Leorah could reach through the Fade and run up against the Veil with her hand, and she could even go so far as to grasp and manipulate the apple with her fingers by tensing the Veil with her will. However, she could not technically come _through_ the barrier unless it either tore or she was allowed through. Leorah’s hand would always be on one side and the apple on the other.

Kindness did not rifle through Connor’s mind to find the memory: he recalled it and the spirit made it stronger, elevated all the little nuances of the cloth’s weave, his mentor’s voice, her coiled hair, the scent of the fruit and the crisp bite after she gave it to him to snack on. Connor chose the memory and why it was important, Kindness only ensured that the sticky sweetness was stronger than the sensations he was trying to escape. Perhaps if he died in this state then the Maker would let Connor linger in the softer moments before realizing that his life was over.

He recalled the Inquisitor’s Way, his first night away from Skyhold and in the company of the Grey Wardens. He knew it wasn’t the Fade because he could see Commander Surana with all the clarity of a memory captured with a tired mind. The smell of the wood smoke, the chill of barely-spring, the stick of gamey rabbit between his teeth, the pebbled ground under his sleeping roll.

Connor ran under bright sunlight, staggering and heavy and slow. He thundered clumsy and weak after Nathaniel’s singing back, came to a crest in the road down which he saw a company of gathered horses and riders. He thought to himself _fuck it_ , and ran straight down the hill where he collapsed in the dusty, grainy dirt.

The ship to Orlais, his first time seeing the Grand Cathedral, Evie teaching him her language again, Connor practicing and practicing and practicing the Warden signs until he could almost speak between the rolling dunes of the Western Approach. The relief when the High Dragon fell limp with its eyes blown out by a fork of lightning from his hands.

The heat of the embrium poured down his throat, his body lifted and bundled and carried away… away… away…

He arrived in the Fade and something very terrible had changed in him. Connor was here and Kindness was close by, but there was a change and it frightened him. Maker, it made him want to _weep…_

His armour wouldn’t form…

“It’s _blue_ \- it- it feels like-” Felt like rashvine ripping his skin like blunt teeth, like heat that left him raw and stinging and- “No! It’s blue and it- it’s silver, there’s… and my hands… and…” Hobbled feet and bleeding shoulder and delicate slices from a blade that had slipped so easily, so neatly, through flesh and left only confused ribbons of pale crimson in its wake. Arms that wouldn’t lift and legs that couldn’t bend or bear weight, burning that rubbed him raw and left him weeping. Linen rags and melted snow and frigid water and “ _No_ …”

_I want to help._

“Not with this…” he gasped, and tried, and tried, and tried. He stayed on his hands and knees, head bowed, mind struggling to release the memory of pain and bring back who he was and what he wanted. He didn’t want to be here, in the rotunda again, under the yellow light again, amidst the bookshelves and the cabinets and the memories of things around him. He wanted the wounds to close, the pain to abate, the thick and grappling belief that he was immobilized from damage and terror to give in against his own will to move and be _alright_ , because this was _the Fade_ and nothing here was _real_ and he did not have to be this way if Connor _did not want to be._

He mastered his appearance but not the pain. His gloves aggravated the cuts across the backs of his hands, his belts and straps rubbed over his armoured tunic but put tension on his tender skin. When he tried to stand his legs would not straighten and they would not bear his weight up off his knees. It was terrifying, but he didn’t know how to force the healing to take place- maybe he wasn’t in a deep enough sleep? What if this was real pain bleeding through the Fade?

“I’m sorry…” He gasped, tears in his eyes because he didn’t know any other way to let the frustration and despair escape him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my love but I can’t do this alone anymore…”

_I want to help…_

“No, Kindness,” he answered the spirit. He could feel its presence close to him, close enough to touch, but he stared down at his hands where they were planted on the rotunda floor, his gloves vanishing again because he couldn’t hold them. “This isn’t going to be kind of me, it’s very selfish and I’m _sorry_.”

Kindness’ confusion and concern bled softly through the dream and Connor couldn’t blink the tears away, but he _could_ focus beyond them. He could reach out for his magic, search for the warmth nestled deep in his spirit and draw it forward, pull it through his ribs, across his chest, through his shoulders, down his elbows, through the knots of his wrists and out from the spread of his fingers. White lines cut across the ground and danced away from him across the stones, spiralling and twisting into a summoner’s mark that he expanded and elaborated.

“Hawke… please…” Black hair, crooked nose, wicked eyes, charming grin, proud voice, noble frame, craftsman’s hands, lonely heart, warm presence, safe, strong, _loved_. “Please be asleep…” Please be in the Fade. “Help me… I’m sorry…”

His focus gathered and crystalized, the spell flaring with a deep rumble of coursing magic. He felt Kindness dance between the motions of the spell and go very far, far, far away, and then it was close, closer, _right here_.

The radiant light of the spell began to fade, the clink of metal and rasp of chainmail dropping through the air. Connor saw silverite boots and scale-clad gauntlets, the high angled blade of a long sword, the brilliant wings of the warrior’s helmet, glittering silverite weave, the unstable, unsteady lines of a dreamer pulled into a new part of the Fade. Connor felt his own will act on the figure in front of him, just to sharpen and solidify him, give him presence and weight and make him more _real_. As for what Carver would do or would say, how he’d react, what he’d believe was happening to him in his sleep, Connor walled those questions off from himself. His will effected how clear and firm Carver appeared, not what he would do.

“Hawke…” to get his attention, because Connor couldn’t get up and Carver was holding himself like he was ready to fight. His voice made his friend and companion spin quickly, the rotunda rippling with the after-effects of whatever dream Connor had pulled him from. Carver remembered muddy road and rain-beaten grass, Connor smoothed the floor back down to dusty masonry and the yellow light of the endless sky.

“Connor- _Connor!_ ” Carver’s sword swung down and the movement wasn’t clear- how he got it from his hand to over his back, but he came running the short distance between them and hit the floor with one knee, practically skidding over the stones and grabbing hard at Connor’s shoulders. The pauldron over his shoulder wasn’t fully formed enough and vanished when Carver reached through it, details from his armour blurring badly as he tried to reinforce what _Carver_ looked like, especially when the dreaming man reached and pulled his own helmet off his head.

Sweat-stained, frantic, Carver was only clear because he was dreaming and he thought what he was seeing was real, that Connor was really on his knees and in front of him. But Maker then, then there were his hands brushing back across Connor’s face and he didn’t expect it, couldn’t blame himself because it hadn’t occurred to him that Carver would touch him like that.

“Connor talk to me, did they hurt you?”

“ _Yes_ …” He was losing focus again. He wanted to see Carver better, his eyes, his hair, the way the lines of his face met at the proud end of his chin and the square edge of his jaw. Carver’s touch wept relief and concern, hands staying in hair that was too long, frightened touches that found bruises from a heavy boot and the unkempt tangle of his unshaved skin. Connor tried to close his eyes and correct it, tell himself that no, he wasn’t injured, no, he wasn’t ragged, he was just… But he couldn’t grasp the image firmly and it faded back. Tangled, dirty, bruised, bleeding. His armour was growing warm and dark in patches, he struggled but couldn’t stop it.

“We’re here now; we’re going to take you home.” Carver thought this was real. He didn’t know he was asleep. Connor let himself lean into the hand that brushed down gently past the bruises, taking the comfort even if it was short-lived and fanciful. Carver took him by the wrist and wrapped that arm around behind his own neck, bracing quickly before making them both stand.

He hissed, stumbled into Carver. The Fade told him no: he was too injured to walk, he was burnt and torn open. His tunic was bloodstained white linen, feet hobbled. He fought back and tried to make his armour close around him again like the arm Carver coiled behind him, struggling to tell the pain it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it was a dream this wasn’t real.

Carver’s fear swelled and broke, his panic cracking the floor around them because Connor’s will was badly beaten and Carver was stubborn, head-strong, forward. There was a hysteria that Connor tried to calm by turning close to him. His legs _hurt_ and wouldn’t carry him, his arms were raw and tight but they worked, twisting around the Warden’s shoulders and holding on tight. He forgot the armour was there, Carver did too: there were no sharp edges or cold hard plate, just the weight and strength of him as Connor tried to hush his fears.

“ _I’m sorry…_ ” he whispered, fingers twisting in his dark hair. “ _I just wanted to see you_.”

“I’m right here.” Bless him, Carver held him and in the Fade it was more than just arms it was everything he wanted through the embrace. The fear, the relief, the concern, the sorrow, the regret, the shame, the heartache, the- the _love? “_ I won’t fail you, not again.”

“You didn’t fail, Carver.”

“I was right beside you and then you were gone.” Connor could smell lavender, but couldn’t remember why he felt that thought should frighten him because Carver was here. Carver didn’t hate lavender but he would complain about it down to his last breath, like the green handprints down Connor’s tunic and the indigo stains on his fingertips and the assorted plants in little pots and bundles scattered at their feet. Connor was holding Carver’s face and form together with his focus, but Carver was drawing everything else out of the Fade with the sheer, gutless certainty that this was real and not a dream.

Connor wasn’t injured because he’d been found and he was safe and he was home and it was over and Carver kissed him, and kissed him… and _kissed_ him… the sweetness of sanded wood, mellow lavender, warmth and strength and Connor’s hands cradling his face, looking up to take the sentiments and intentions and everything but the gesture itself. Connor wanted to be kissed but it wasn’t all there- his lips weren’t real. Everything else was but not his arms, not his breaths, not his skin. Carver wanted to be here and he really thought he was, but it was still the _Fade…_

“I love you,” Connor felt the sentiment more than he heard the pledge and fell through the next kiss so hard he hoped the landing killed him. “ _Connor…_ ” Carver was going to wake up hundreds of miles away from him and Connor was going to go back to embrium and rashvine and loneliness and this selfish respite had been a mistake because he _had not known this_ … He had not known Carver would take losing him like _this_ …

“ _I’m so sorry,_ ” he hushed before he was touched with tenderness again, tears tucked back by Carver’s soothing fingers.

“Love her,” Carver whispered in his dream, misunderstanding tended by forgiveness and acceptance and genuine hope that- “But I love you and I was going to say it.”

“Not that, Hawke,” Connor tried again, guilt weaving between his ankles like the vines that had burned and tormented him, the yearning need for understanding and clarity reaching through the blurry lines of the dream, weaving between threads of the veil if need be. “Both, I love and I need you both. I love you and I love you and I just needed to _see you_ one last time and Carver forgive me, I’m _so sorry_ …”

“It’s not the last time, I’m right here.”

“ _Carver…_ ”

“ _You’re safe!_ ” The Dreamer holding him shouted and Connor just wept because the Fade was rippling and echoing with the things that couldn’t be said. “I remember it! We came and-!” No they hadn’t, no on had come to Redcliffe; no one _could._ “And… No- _no…_ I’m still in Denerim…?”

Connor kissed him. He put his love and his apology into it and the way Carver wouldn’t let go and the denial shedding from his body told them both that this moment was drawing to a close. Carver Hawke was dreaming and he was about to wake up.

“They’re hurting you-” He took Carver’s lips back when he tried to speak, the green stains on that silly tunic ripping away, his legs burning, skin threaded with dried blood. “Why? Tell me _why!_ ”

“To control me-” Don’t look at him, just kiss him, don’t notice the wounds coming back just kiss him, _just kiss him…_

“This is a dream- you did it again!”

“I’m so _sorry_ ,”

“You should have done this sooner, Connor, we-” He was fading, fading, and there was no willing him to stay. “ _Connor!_ ” He was falling further behind the veil, his image rendered down to smoke and ash and- “ _Connor **no!**_ ” And he was gone.

He was gone and Connor wept. Kindness could not help him.

_I just want to help…_

There was no helping him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY FINALLY KISSED is that enough to earn some comments from you guys? It is a mystery.  
> As of July 17th Disgrace is complete up to it's 41st chapter. I'd like to get 42 done tomorrow.


	32. Judgement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing Chapter 42 yesterday and I'm happy to say that 43 is the last challenging chapter I have to get through. Once that's done, it's all steady denouement until the end!

 

Soren sent Nathaniel, Zevran, and twenty Grey Wardens on a diverted path to Redcliffe almost four weeks after Connor’s abduction. The morning after their departure, he and Alistair both learned of Eamon’s flight from the city.

“ _I told him!_ ” His friend thundered. Alistair’s world was cracking down the middle but Soren refused to sympathize or feel sorry this time. It wasn’t Alistair’s fault, it was _Eamon’s_. “I told him to stay in Denerim! _Soren, I told him!_ ”

“He knows I’ll have my proof soon,” Soren answered him. He knew it would cause a fight, he knew and this time he didn’t _care._

“ _He **can’t** be behind this!”_ He was. He absolutely was, and Soren _refused_ to let this go. “No! Until the cyphers are broken and I have _real_ proof, I won’t take your suspicions for anything, not a damned thing!”

“You called me here to save the daughter of the man who is keeping my son prisoner!” He shouted back, because he couldn’t _take this_ anymore!

“You suspect him but _you don’t know that!_ ”

“Why else would he flee the city in the middle of the night, Alistair!?” Eamon was gone and Soren desperately hoped his carriage would encounter Nathaniel’s men on the road south. He wanted the Arl of Denerim either stuck through with arrows or captured for leverage. “My people are being attacked! You can’t tell me to just sit pretty and wait!”

“I won’t let you attack the wrong man!”

“ _He has my son!_ ”

Anora stopped them from destroying their friendship, not because she liked them, but because intervention meant slipping Soren neatly into her pocket where he had promised to fold himself and stay. Their Queen opened the salon doors where their argument was cresting like a wave ready to wash away years of friendship. She entered with an entourage of several Banns, Ambassador Rodrigo, Teagan, and Arl Godrick Bryland of South Reach- a territory south of Denerim and east of Redcliffe. Bryland was giving Teagan a reproachful look as the two of them flanked their Queen, but when he looked at Soren the southern Arl nodded. How was Bryland involved?

“I will not allow the Antivan Crows believe that they can propel Fereldan politics so easily,” the Queen announced. “Nor will I permit ignoble men of Ferelden’s finest houses to torment children rather than face their enemies as is proper. The Arl of Denerim has fled his hold over nothing but the _accusation_ of dishonour, and in doing so has forsaken friendship with Amaranthine, forswearing their offer to protect and safeguard the life of Redcliffe’s only heir!” Anora had told him she wanted to draw Eamon’s wife and daughter to Denerim where they could be held without the need for marching armies or military commands, but Eamon had shown his hand today and was miles from the city.

Soren trusted Nathaniel to follow his orders. He trusted Oghren to command his men. He trusted Sigrun to keep her colours hidden until he could command otherwise.

“Anora I must protest-” Teagan said loudly.

“You will address our Queen with respect!” Bryland bitterly shouted him down, then looked further into the room with Anora’s assenting nod to guide him. Godrick Bryland was a fit, mature man who wore his leather weaves and striped furs with well-earned pride. “My King, I have word for the Arl of Amaranthine from my Seneschal at Caer Blackwood, brought forth to me by these two messengers.”

Here Arl Bryland reached behind him and beckoned Warden An’eth and Warden Hassick forward. Soren was thankful to see them both unharmed, wet and wind-burned from the poor winter weather, but they walked with only apprehension to weigh them down and seemed immediately more comfortable when they recognized him. They took to attention at the same time and Soren nodded to them.

“What word comes from Blackwood?” Alistair asked his Arl, and Soren was curious to hear why two of his Wardens were playing courier.

“My Seneschal, who is as a sister to me, my King, to whom I entrust the oversight of my lands and charges, has pledged unwavering belief in the validity of these Grey Wardens’ claims.” That meant they must have stopped in South Reach on the ride from Redcliffe to Denerim. Soren looked to them for an explanation.

“A good man who fought beside you to free Redcliffe from undead and then followed King Alistair’s banners to the Battle of Denerim gave us these, Commander.” Hassick explained to him, stepping forward with the items in question. One of the Vigil’s bronze keys, a Warden’s Oath pendant, and the very same bloodstone ring Soren had commissioned from Skyhold’s craftswoman Dagna. An’eth was quick to hand over more information as Soren took the items with cold hands:

“He was commanded by Ser Perth of Redcliffe, on behalf of Arlessa Isolde, to dispose of the Warden’s armour in Lake Calenhad. The man rescued these items before carrying out the order.” An’eth rushed to say, her eyes able to settle on no one but Soren. “Warden Guerrin is _in_ Redcliffe, Your Grace, and Ser Perth brought the armour down from the castle!”

“ _I will not-!_ ” Teagan shouted, but Soren was not listening, _“-allow a Dalish savage and a dockyard sell-sword to blacken the Knights of Redcliffe!_ How dare you speak the Arlessa’s name in such a context, I should have you _flogged-_ ”

“I stand by my Seneschal’s word!” Bryland shouted,

“ _No one_ speaks to my Wardens that way,” Soren murmured, taking _exceptional_ care with his tone.

“Surana sends _spies_ to Redcliffe!” Teagan was locking horns with Bryland as Anora slipped forward to stand next to her husband. Alistair was _reeling_ from the information.

“And Eamon sends _Crows!_ ” The other Arl bellowed back. He may not have had an impressive stake in these matters but there was more going on here than Connor’s ring or Rowan’s health. The administrators of the Arling of _South Reach_ had been told that there was a Grey Warden who had been abducted, stripped, and was now held in Castle Redcliffe. If Bryland wanted to keep his hold then he would ally with the Grey Wardens against such an offense or risk a staggering blow to his Bann’s support. South Reach was a fertile, wealthy Arling, but it had been devastated by the Blight. Amaranthine was kind to her Grey Wardens, but Southern Ferelden was _indebted_ to them. “Flap your lying lips at me, Teagan The Absent of Redcliffe, and I will slice them off your face!” The mock title made Teagan’s face flush brilliantly.

“ _Dare_ you insult me!”

“Before my King and Queen!”

“Teagan! _Godrick!”_ Alistair shouted them both down, and his volume covered Soren’s orders to Hassick and An’eth to return to the estate, rest, and reclaim their armour. They would march soon. “I will not have you fighting like dogs in the middle of my castle!”

“South Reach is being _manipulated,_ Alistair!” Teagan argued against his King, thrusting a hand at Soren. “Do not let the Grey Wardens get away with this!”

“The only fool is you, Teagan Guerrin!” Bryland defended himself fiercely. He stepped boldly between that offensive hand and Soren, defending him before the Banns of South Reach who had followed Anora and the Arls into this room. Anora’s hand was on her husband’s arm, her lips at his ear, speaking.

“The entire city knows how your brother grumbled and raged against his mage son joining the Grey Wardens!” Bryland continued. “As if such a thing could be considered a _dishonour_ after the Blight! The court knows Isolde fled the city the same night he went missing and the lot of you play and pretend at concern! Your brother bars the Grey Wardens from court, he tried to stop the King from summoning the Hero of Ferelden to heal his daughter’s illness! Castle Denerim is brimming with rumours, and not a single one is kind to you, Teagan!”

“I will not be brought low by servant chatter!”

“ _Then let it be by your own hubris!”_  Bryland roared back, “The Banns of South Reach stand with their Arl!” The men and women crowding the room gave a shout when called on. Fists struck hearts and fierce pride straightened their backs. “The Arling of South Reach stands with the Grey Wardens, House Bryland allies with House Surana!”

“House Surana accepts the hand of House Bryland!” Soren was quick to say and Teagan’s temper suffered a second eruption.

“ _You threaten civil war!”_

 _“ENOUGH!_ ” Alistair boomed at them. “ _ENOUGH! Not another word!”_ Alistair’s voice carried high and loud over them and Teagan backed down, bringing Bryland a step back to stand next to Soren as they all looked up to their King again. “One more word and I’ll have _all three of you_ thrown out! No fighting, no wars, none of this!” Soren could have said plenty in the face of those remarks, but help his peace this time. He hadn’t expected another Arling to get involved, but South Reach was a powerful ally.

Anora touched her husband’s wrist with one hand. Soren had not expected her to maneuver this way, but she and Alistair had grown quite close over the years. The look the Queen gave her King felt like it carried genuine care for him, and when she nodded carefully in assent, Soren didn’t sense any deceit. Alistair watched her, and then with a grave weight to him he looked back at the three Arls and assorted Banns of South Reach.

“Soren, how closely allied are you with the College of Enchanters?” Alistair asked him, and the question seemed almost out of place.

“It is… a personal affiliation?” He answered, but with a quick glance at Anora. She gave him nothing and so he continued with: “As an Archmage I have the right to vote on College matters, meet quorum, and can address and make propositions to the College’s High Council. It doesn’t effect my obligations to Amaranthine or the Grey Wardens.”

“What about Warden Connor?” Alistair asked, and Soren had to think about that for a moment. Not _why_ he was asking, but what it meant to have Alistair bring the topic forward. Soren had not told Anora what he suspected of Rowan, not without reaching Connor again first for real communication. He’d found Kindness, but Connor himself was a mystery.

“He’s a Harrowed Mage and a member of the College by default, but he’s expressed no interest in the College’s affairs.” He answered truthfully. “Our rings are a sign of loyalty to the establishment, if he didn’t want the affiliation then he would not have carried it with him.” King and Queen shared a long, quiet look with each other again, and Anora nodded once more to her husband. Alistair’s eyes were lost when he looked back at the assembly in front of him, shaking his head gently.

“What are a College Mage’s obligations upon encountering a child with the early signs of magic? Would you send them to Cumberland?” Alistair put the questions together clumsily, and Soren let himself look thoughtful as he considered his answer.

“With what alternative, your Majesty?” He asked. “Magic requires training, and is only safe when used and explained properly by those who understand it. If I couldn’t train the child myself then I would have them escorted to the College’s main body.” And then, without being prompted: “Given his history, Warden Connor would do the same without hesitation.”

“Archmage Surana, how difficult is it to tell if a child is beginning to express magical talent?” Alistair demanded this time, and Soren was _deeply_ pleased. He had said nothing to Anora, she had come up with this theory herself.

“Quite easy,” he answered with confidence. “Mage children can accidentally enter the Fade every time they fall asleep, and it can be very frightening for them. Nightmares, insomnia, hysteria… emotional outbursts followed by displays of magic.” Alistair lifted a hand to silence him, and Soren let himself stand there patiently. He didn’t need to do anything, this moment was coming together entirely on its own.

“Arl Teagan,” Alistair’s voice was heavy. “You will describe your niece’s symptoms to me, right here, right now in front of all these people.” Soren looked to Teagan and felt pure satisfaction in watching the older man stand there and struggle to keep himself calm. He took far too long to come up with an answer.

“Arl Teagan Guerrin of Redcliffe,” Alistair repeated firmly and with all the authority Soren had been told years ago his friend would never be able to wield. “You will describe your niece and heir’s symptoms right now, right here, before an Archmage of the College of Enchanters and representative of Cumberland’s High Council.”

Teagan struggled, and he warred with himself, and his answer was sweet sustenance in the midst of this terrible campaign.

“Rowan is his last chance to keep House Guerrin alive, Alistair,” the other Arl wheezed. He was feeling the weight threatening to crush him if he didn’t get out of judgement’s way as his brother’s line _crumbled_. “Connor refused to train her, Surana would have stolen her away to Nevarra, he-” _He admitted it!_

“I hereby strip the Arling of Denerim from House Guerrin,” Alistair’s voice was dark and heavy as _death_ as he whispered to the silent room. Soren felt his heart give a hard, shuddering push against his ribs. Rowan Guerrin was a mage and Arl Teagan had just admitted it.

“Alistair _no_ -” He couldn’t back-pedal out of it, he’d broken his silence and House Guerrin’s noble titles were vanishing under each slow, threatening step Alistair took towards him. Bryland and Soren each took a step away from their King, and Anora caught his eye just long enough to tilt her face up, pride and satisfaction confirming his debt as Alistair breathed outrage and betrayal over Teagan’s face.

“Tell me where the Hero of Ferelden’s son is being held hostage, Arl Teagan,” he hummed like tempered steel. “Before I ride down to Redcliffe Castle just to throw you from its towers myself.”

* * *

Connor woke up to the sound of the sky sheering open. He felt blind in the low firelight of a warm room, but he heard the windows rattling loudly in their casements and a peeling shriek that made his skin prickle and sting.

“ _Braska!_ ” The female Crow’s voice cried out. He was orienting himself, slowly, trying to remember where he was and what had happened to him. He couldn’t move but he was awake, dizzy with fright when he closed his eyes and Castle Redcliffe shuddered again with that horrible, hair-raising sound. He’d heard screams like this before, he’d felt the wind slam the earth like hammer-falls. He felt the cold air come surging down the chimney floo and blow out embers and ashes, the sky shrieking again before something loud, something large, something _powerful_ came blowing past the room’s only window.

High Dragon.

The nonsense behind that thought was strong, but it was undeniable. Connor had faced exactly one High Dragon in his life and had never felt an inkling to go hunting down another. But that was a High Dragon. That was the sound and sensation of a High Dragon in territorial flight, trying to scare off and size-up whatever was antagonizing it. How in the Maker’s name a beast like that could be within _sight_ of Redcliffe was beyond him, but so was everything else.

Sharp Antivan words flung back and forth over his bed and Connor took slow, careful stock of where he was. He’d been brought back down to what looked like the same room he’d been in for most of his imprisonment. His limbs and torso were _heavy_ with something more tangible than embrium and sleep, meaning he couldn’t move. He’s woken up early for the dosage’s strength, but felt lucid enough to stay awake- if the Talon would let him.

“Out,” Diego ordered his Crows, and the High Dragon bellowed again overhead, the castle rumbling with its piercing screech. “Report back quickly.” They left just like that, three shadows that didn’t speak, made hardly any sound as they slipped from the room and left Connor alone with the Talon who’d ordered his torture.

“Have you learned your lesson, Warden?” Diego loomed over him and looked down with the threatening words. With one hand he spun the slim, narrow length of a short knife, the handle rolling over the knuckle of his thumb as he flicked it again and again to catch the light. “Or should we return you to the tower?”

“Nn-” Maker, the bolt of frigid _terror_ that launched through his gut at the-

“You will obey me now,” Diego’s deep voice told him, and Connor focused on the Talon’s eyes. “No more compromises, Warden. Am I understood?” He nodded- _tried_ to nod. “If you disobey me, it will be back to the tower.” _No-_ “Heal your wounds.”

The order frightened him, but not as much as the threat of what would happen if he failed. He couldn’t move but as he laid there and closed his eyes tightly, he could focus. He could focus and he could try, and when he reached for his magic and drew it out slowly, it came without resistance and he was able to manipulate the warmth into something more tangible.

He started with his chest because that was where the magic emerged from. His skin had been layered in poultice and bandages, numbing the worst of the pain and allowing his powers to spread and coil into the appropriate forms to sooth, to heal, to knit hair-line slices of muscle and skin back together. The patches of swollen muscle burned by rashvine across his flanks were calmed and washed away, the dusty flavour of white wine breathed under warm summer starlight cleansing burns and bruises and tears. He tended his wrenched shoulders and swollen fingers, healing the welts cut into his forearms and wrists until he could move one hand and touch his fingertips to his raw throat, walking his touch up across his bruised face, his filthy scalp…

Very few places on his body had survived the tower unscathed. He didn’t want to think about what had happened, how those wounds had appeared or what they meant. Kindness had protected him from many of them as they’d been dealt, but the spirit was far away from him across the veil now. He didn’t want to end up back in that situation again. Healing the same wounds over and over again on his own body would wear away at his own abilities, numb him to pain that was there to tell him there was something _wrong_ and in need of _fixing_.

When Connor had healed himself he was left feeling fatigued. The Crows returned from investigating the noise that had shaken the castle, and they confirmed the dragon for what it was: a beast as large as the castle stables and enraged to the point of landing on a portion of the castle’s roof and ripping the tiles and beams away. She’d decimated the great hall by tearing through the ceiling and breathing liquid violet flames down. Two knights had been killed and plenty more injured when she’d launched herself back into the air with a great beat of her wings and vanished.

Connor learned all of this by virtue of the Crows speaking in Trade. They wanted him to know, maybe they thought it would do more to scare him.

They fed him, made him walk around on his healed limbs, then put him back to bed and told him to rest.

“You will not visit the girl.” The Talon told him.

“I won’t.”

“If you do, you will go back to the tower.” The fear sank its claws into his gut and twisted.

“No- please- _I won’t_.” He drank the hot tea steeped with embrium and he landed on his weak-kneed feet in the centre of his rotunda.

Connor didn’t know how long he had been made to sleep between the end of his torture and waking up with the Dragon’s scream. He’d summoned Hawke and spoken to him, and he’d tried but failed to call Evie the same way. He wanted to say goodbye to her but she hadn’t been in the dream realm, possibly because she’d been woken up by Carver after… Maker, he didn’t want to think about it.

He didn’t want to think about Rowan either.

“Kindness?” He called, and he felt the spirit’s presence in the yellow light. “Kindness, is Rowan asleep?”

_Yes, she searches for you._

“Don’t let her find me.” He told the spirit. “If you bring her, I’ll run away.” He would not go back to the tower. If he did then he would die, and-

_She cries out for you._

“Tell her I’m sorry but please, _please_ , don’t let her find me.”

_She felt safe with you, she weeps._

“Stay with her, protect her, _please_ , but don’t-”

_My friend, please, she is frightened._

No, no he didn’t want to hear _that…_ How would he ignore her if she was upset and vulnerable? The Fade was full of all sorts of dangerous things, he had to do something. He had to figure out a way.

“I’ll make this place safe for her,” he decided, looking up because it kept him from acknowledging the bloodied clothes he’d appeared in the Fade with. His feet were bare but he cut the hobbling strap between his ankles, he’d need to be able to run. “When it’s ready, bring her here and make sure she _stays_ here, Kindness!”

_Without you?_

“Without me.”

_It is cruel._

“It’s the only kindness I can afford, my friend. I’m sorry.”

He set wards of protection and safeguarding, barriers against cruelty and evil, repulsion of grand spirits, immobilization of anger, strength against pain. He knew the feeling of Kindness passing back and forth over the spells and memorized it, told himself to wait until he felt Kindness and one other presence pass over the marks before he’d determine anything that followed them as a hostile to be attacked.

In the centre, to draw Rowan inside, Connor conjured a beaten disk of gold. He didn’t make it the same as her coin with King Alistair and the Ferelden Mabari, but a flattened image of the College of Enchanters’ ring and burning palm on one side, the faded lines of the Grey Warden Griffon on the other. He conjured the coin and with a snap of his fingers he set the disk spinning rapidly, suspended in mid-air, and then fled the rotunda.

He did not go through Skyhold or the circle, but up through the other door: the first one that had ever appeared in this part of the Fade. He took off down the slanted corridors poorly explored once before, running much faster here than he knew he would have been able to otherwise, and did not look back.

He felt Rowan take the coin and armed the spells using that. He was aware of Kindness folding the girl up in soft downy wings and comforting her wild emotions. He kept his sister safe and himself far away from her. Kindness disapproved but he didn’t know any other way around it.

When he woke up the next day, he was stronger and able to bathe, still barred from shaving but it didn’t bother him as much now. He wanted no more blades near his skin, not even one he was holding himself. He finished quickly and let them leave him with the enchanter’s robe, donning it this time without his complaints. It didn’t feel like a violation this time, just a defeat.

Connor was taken to the study and told to sit in his chair. The window had a thin crack running through it that let the warm air escape out into the snowy garden outside, and the entire castle felt much colder for the dragon’s efforts against what had been one of the central chambers of the complex.

Rowan was brought in for her lesson by the knights, and as soon as she saw him the little girl flung her book on the floor with a wail and rushed towards him.

“ _Why did you leave!?_ ” She screamed, eyes nearly shut as she cried and wept, grabbing at his sleeves with her hands and shaking him, trying to make him stand up. He moved to the edge of his seat, not sure if he would be able to stand, and was immediately clung to in a wild hug, Rowan’s shouting, sobbing face rubbing down on his shoulder. “You didn’t come back! You _didn’t!”_ And she wailed, long and wordless and filled with pain. The only thing Connor could do was pull his arms around her slowly, his hand large enough to swallow her shoulder as she cried and cried and _cried…_ “You wouldn’t t-teach me and you weren’t in the l-library and you didn’t come _back!_ ”

“I’m sorry…” He whispered, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Mother says you’re sick,” the girl continued, still smothering her cries against him. She was shaking and her weeping was making her flushed and warm. “She said you’re my brother and you’re very ill and you were too sick to teach me, but you wouldn’t come back when I called you!” Here she pulled away from him, Connor thought she would wrestle her way out completely until she chose to grab hard to the front of the stolen robe instead. Had it always fit him this loosely before? Her grey eyes were swimming with tears and he focused on those instead, brushing wayward strands of dark brown hair away from her face. “I called and I called and I _called_ and you never answered me! I found the little bird and she just told me to stay in your library and not leave- and when I tried to anyways the spells wouldn’t let me go anywhere! I couldn’t get out!”

“I didn’t want anything to find you,” Connor admitted, and he felt a terrifying chill down his neck. What if that was enough? What if Kindness and his wards counted as enough contact for that Talon to consider it a violation of his demands? “You won’t see me in your dreams again, Rowan.”

“ _No!_ ” She screeched at him, “ _You have to come back! You have to!”_

“I can show you how not to dream at all,” he let the words rush out of him. “I can set the wards in your room and you’ll never even go back there.”

“I don’t want to! I want you to come _back!_ ”

“No, girl.” He tried to be firm but his voice just felt faint and broken.

“Why not!?”

“Because you broke your promise to me, Rowan Guerrin, and I…” had almost died because of it. Had been tortured and cut and beaten and bled and humiliated because of it. But she was a child and she hadn’t known what would happen if she broke a promise to the stranger who was supposed to teach her something she was afraid of. At some point a child became a youth and a youth became an adult who needed to understand that actions had consequences, but right now Rowan was a little girl still, and he had no right to throw his situation back at her like a punishment. What she’d done wrong was break her promise and the rest of it was someone else’s blame to carry. So he amended his words before he said them, and what passed his lips was: “And I don’t visit oath-breakers.”

He saw the shock and sting of the scolding hit her, quieting her sobs and stilling her wild tears.

“Do you know what an oath-breaker is, Rowan Guerrin?” He asked her, and the little girl nodded mutely, their hands falling away from each other. “Tell me.”

“It’s a knight who gives her word and then breaks it,” the child told him in a shameful whisper. “Father says oath-breaks dishonour their Lord’s house and can’t be trusted…”

“That’s right,” he said, and it would get him hurt but this was already hard enough to deal with. The Talon had given him orders and commands, but this was not covered by any of them, and he was going to say it. “You broke your promise to me, little dreamer, and you only have one more to keep. Break that one and I forswear you as my student, as my sister, as a lady of Redcliffe.” She tried to pull away and this time he caught her arms, tightly, because she was only a child but she was going to _hear him_.

“Succumb to a demon’s touch, Rowan Guerrin, and I will cast you down with Ser Perth; he who is the Wretch of the Hinterlands, Coward Before Andraste, Oath-Breaker and Breath of Deceit.” And, in a louder voice so the knights could hear him from the door: “So long as he and I draw breath beneath the Maker’s light, so shall this vow I take of enmity and vengeance guide me on my path to his final moment. His mortal life will expire upon my blade or mine upon his, this oath I swear before the Maker and his Holy Bride, this vow no man can take from me, a Freeman of Ferelden, Connor of Amaranthine.”

He let Rowan run from him as the outraged knights shouted and charged the room. He watched the Crow meant to oversee him leap into the path of the two men taking his oath as seriously as he’d meant it. The Crow had his blades out but the knight he ran for first was holding a straight dagger instead of his sword. With an armoured elbow he was able to knock away one of the Crow’s arms, let his off-hand blade scratch harmlessly down his breastplate, and rammed the entire length of his own dagger deep into the assassin’s chest. The human dropped with a stunned gasp of _“Magic- Magic!_ ” and Connor took that as an explicit order for what followed.

If the taint rose then he had every reason to believe it would burn through the embrium floating through his blood and drop him into a shivering mess. So he didn’t stand, he didn’t yell, he hardly moved any more than he had to. He was a mage and he was scared of many things, but the Knights of Redcliffe were not in that realm.

His fingers curled like claws, magic threading between them in a violent web of vengeance and intolerance. He rolled his wrist and took a deep breath, releasing it slow and low from his mouth as he showed his palm and looked back at the fireplace in front of him. He didn’t watch the lightning course down his arm and explode from his hand, but he felt it rocket for the knight’s drawn sword, strike, dance, and blister from blade to gauntlets to pauldron. The metal sucked up the heat and the sword’s blade rent from the force of the magic, the blast launching the knight straight back off his feet to sail through the air and land in a screaming heap of blackened metal and burning flesh. The one who’d stabbed the crow slammed one foot down on a tangled weave of white and gold magic and Connor clenched his hand tight with another breath, ice seizing up the man’s leg, and wrenching his momentum in such a way that he howled in horrible pain when the top of his body kept moving, the ice catching _below_ his knee on purpose so the joints both wrenched and popped.

He lifted his hand in front of him, still watching the fire, and grabbed a net of magic threading together above him. He grasped it, tangled his fingers in it, and ripped it down as two thick bolts of lightning blasted from the ceiling and struck both wounded men, ending their screams and bringing the room into complete silence.

Well, not complete. The Crow gasped something and scraped one foot back, hand pressed down tight around the blade lancing his torso. He was trying to control the bleeding and swearing over and over again. Rowan was gone, but that was fine. The commotion would bring more Knights to kill him and Connor’s only hope now was that Perth would be among them.

His heart was beating hard and _that_ worried him, and worry would lead to fear and that would make the taint even more of an issue.

Bracing his hands on the arms of his chair, Connor stood under his own power and only wobbled a little bit. He could do this. He might end up run through with a sword, but he could do everything before that. Diego had told him no more compromise but there was still a chance, just a _chance…_

The desecrated bodies of the knights didn’t bother him, and when he reached the Crow on the floor he spoke simply to him.

“I’m a healer,” he said, waiting for the sound of more knights. “Order me and it’s done.”

“ _Then do it, fucker-_ ” The Crow pulled the dagger from his own body, bringing a bright red flow of blood that Connor eased with an open palm hovering high over him. It would be easier from his knees, but he didn’t think he’d be able to stand up again if he knelt now.

Straight blade, it was a deep wound but simple. His lungs had been spared and so had the lining of his stomach, if barely, and the muscles were very fine and difficult to seal back together from this high up. But he could do it, he did do it, and by the time they heard jangling chain mail and saw steel swords the Crow was back on his feet with the offensive knife clutched in his hand with his blood still dripping from it and off-hand pressed to the bloody hole in his armour.

“Attack us again, Dogs, and I’ll have the mage repeat his display!” The Crow shouted, his Antivan accent thick and dripping over the words. “He obeys the Crows now. Sheathe your blades or die!”

“ _Kill them bo-!_ ” A black shadow swept up against the flank of the knight who tried to order a charge, cutting him off as he was jostled, lifted, and then dropped on the ground in a flagging heap. The knight next in line lifted an elbow to smash down against the black form but gasped in pain before dropping to his knees, a second dark figure right behind him with a pair of blood-stained knives in her hands. The third knight immediately changed his grip on his sword, letting the blade fall and holding it by the hilt in a position of surrender, backing away from the door and into the room, seeking safety with his back against the wall and both hands up. He was immediately closed in on by all three Crows, but they didn’t attack.

“Disgraceful.” The Talon’s voice entered the room, his boots stepping over the first dead knight, then the second. His hands were behind his back and he shook his head at the signs of magic over the other two bodies. “These were such fine rugs.”

“They attacked your man,” Connor told him, clenching his teeth because his heart would not _slow_. It had been one thing to think he could reason with the Talon, but hearing his voice again was quickly washing away his resolve. “And if I die, you fail your contract.”

“Without provocation?” Diego asked, and Connor’s clever words evaporated. “ _Stephano._ ”

The Crow was not happy to explain himself, but he was mild about letting one of his companions reach a hand out and touch the bloodied face of his armour. The knight trapped against the wall moved down to his knees and said nothing. Stephano spoke in his mother tongue, one of the other Crows commented, but the Talon remained silent. Diego advanced until he was close enough to reach up and very gently take Connor’s chin, the pad of his thumb against the cleft and one finger curled behind, tilting his head up. He felt weak, dizzy from the magic and the adrenaline that was eating through the drug sustaining him. He watched him for several long, terrifying moments and Connor prayed. Silently, he _begged_.

“Stephano told you to use your magic?” The Talon uttered darkly.

“Yes,”

“He told you to heal him?”

“I offered, he said yes.” Diego’s touch vanished, his hand pulling to the side in a slow, steady manner that made Connor wince- he was going to be hit. When the Talon curled his fingers he made the mistake of relaxing.

The Talon back-handed him so hard he felt blood cut through his nose and mouth. He dropped to the floor and couldn’t catch himself, bruising his face when it struck the cold stone floor. He gasped, struggled, and then _whimpered_ when he felt the Taint react to the assault and soak through his heart, needles firing up his limbs, burning and burning until he started to go cold.

“Provoke our friends again and you will spend a day in the tower for every knight you kill.” The Talon’s heavy footsteps were carrying him away. “Drag him back to the room, do not let him heal his wounds. I will handle this matter with the Arlessa.” He gave the orders in trade so Connor would understand them, so he’d _fear_ them.

It worked.


	33. Counterpoints

The fastest land forces in Thedas were not the Orlesian Chevaliers, the Fereldan Ash Warriors, or the Free Marcher mercenaries, they were the Grey Wardens.

You’d think it pretty fucking stupid for a contingent of thirty armed men and women to march straight west when their enemy was at the southern edge of the realm, but the surface world was blighted by this shit called _‘snow’_ in winter and Oghren wasn’t eager to wrestle with that crap until he had to. Northern Ferelden from Amaranthine, through Highever, to West Hill was all rainy territory. Cold and windy and miserable, but not frozen. Horses could canter at a decent pace in the downpour, men and women could refill their water skins without having to stop at riversides. The imperial highway was _built_ for shitty weather and moving a lot of people across a lot of miles. He almost coulda’ sworn it was Dwarven engineering, that was how well it worked.

The first excuse, like the men and women with Sigrun before them, was to check out Soldier’s Peak. And they did that, cursory, with a grumble and a nod to the Highever captains watching the forks in the road leading dead south into the Peak’s high passage. Oghren left five Wardens behind at the check-point in exchange for the ten Silver Order Militiamen Lieutenant Sigrun had left in her wake a week prior. Sigrun had claimed she had some undead to put down for a local Bann and carried on West. Oghren told Highever that he and Captain Renth were marching for Kinloch Hold with their thirty men to look for something at the tower.

In fact they fucking were. Surana had had to guess where between Orzammar and Gwaren his boy had been hidden and the consensus before the Commander’d left for Denerim with fifty Wardens and ten militiamen had been the old circle tower. Redcliffe wanted to fuck with him, right? Humble him? Get into his head and play mind-games with him? Then they’d find Crows in the scuttled old remains of the Ferelden Circle with Kieran locked up somewhere inside. Surana had been penned up in that tower for over twelve years and despite whatever _nugshit_ he spewed about respecting the Circles, the thought of his kid being chained up in the same place had lit a fire under the rest of them.

Sigrun had almost fifty soldiers with her and they sure as shit weren’t with Oghren or Renth on the road to Kinloch hold. Nah, they’d left the same day as Surana had for Denerim, most of them Silver Order members and willing to brave the soggy, rainy, increasingly snowy cold of the Fereldan Bannorn to get where they were going. Of all the parties sent out Sigrun’s would have been the hardest to recall but also the easiest to write off and say she was just following Darkspawn rumours.

Oghren had heard stories about the lonely spire rising from Lake Calenhad’s choppy waters. There was still an inn on the shore but a bunch of overgrown ruins too, and the men had to make camp and fashion rafts to take seven of them across to the tower. Kinloch Hold was defensible and Oghren hated the fact that they had to _float_ to reach the pebbled beaches and black stones of the old magi prison. Should’ve been Surana doing this, not him.

They weren’t shot at, and Hestel found no traps. Lots of bones though, lots of bodies that’d been dragged to the side and left to rot. Bodies in rotted robes, bodies too short to be grown, bodies missing limbs and still run through with glimmers of steel. Bodies from a war that didn’t make any sodding sense to him, but it involved cutting down children and he understood now why Soren would rather have gone to Denerim than come here, why checking Kinloch Hold first had been so important in trying to find Kieran.

There were lots of rotted corpses, and because the Ancestors wouldn’t let them catch a break there were also lots of _fucking undead_ as a result. Oghren was right there swearing up a fiery storm at the state of the entire shithole tower! There were no sodding Crows here, Zevran!

They didn’t clear the whole tower, they cleared enough of it to be certain the Antivan Crows had not been stupid enough to come here. They combed inside and outside the building, then mounted their rafts in the freezing rain to get back to shore. They camped for two days and bought out the inn for supplies to keep themselves and their horses well fed for the road ahead. The next day the sky was cold but clear, and they struck south.

Renth thought he cared that the way the Imperial Highway curved around Lake Calenhad kept the snow from piling up. Or she was freezing cold and thought talking would keep her from turning to ice on the inside as well as out. He didn’t know shit about weather or what caused it to piss rain one day, be clear and sunny the next, and then dump snow in their path and force the horses to slow so they didn’t fall and snap their brittle legs, he just knew that they were driving south.

South, south, south. Cold, cold, cold. White snow in great drifts piled up on the sides of the imperial highway, the stones keeping them elevated over the worst of the white rivers and black ravines and smoky homesteads that dotted the lowlands along the lake’s coast. He’d taken this way many times before, but never with this kind of determination. He wasn’t scraping his ass along in Surana’s wake looking for Darkspawn or settling disputes, he was leading men to war and he didn’t like how uneasy that difference made him feel. Bastard lords had attacked the Wardens and Surana’s family, so of course Oghren would take hammer to head and show them what that kind of disrespect was worth! But it wasn’t like fighting Darkspawn. It weighed harder on the heart.

They reached the hinterlands. They’d been travelling steadily for over two weeks since Vigil’s Keep and when they left the road Oghren’s Wardens left Renth’s militiamen. The company split itself to avoid attracting rumours. Redcliffe’s roads and snowy farmlands were surrounding them now, the village a day’s hike away.

The Inquisition maintained a strong presence in the hinterlands but it was a friendly one. Oghren took his Wardens to one of their camps near the Crossroads. They were high enough up on a hill to see the edges of those spinning windmills on a good clear day and with permission the Wardens dug in. Said they were waiting for orders from the Warden Commander and would be happy to hunt, work, and scout with the Inquisition’s members if they needed the extra hands in exchange for a place to set up tents, dig a latrine and build a proper fire. The Inquisition was happy for the company in the cold clime. The Wardens were on edge waiting for their orders.

A familiar blackbird landed by their fire one day, and Oghren eyed it warily for the several hours it was there with them. The bird took off when the rain stopped and the next day they heard news of a High Dragon ravaging the area. Not their signal, not the one Oghren had been told to wait for at least. The bird came back and again it warmed itself by their fire, he even let her pluck at a meal although she was too damned proud to take most of it.

Another day, another dragon attack. She left the village itself alone but ripped a hole in the castle’s great hall. That night a black cat snuck into Oghren’s tent and he made sure the brazier was burning bright and hot inside. Morrigan had a nasty looking wound on her arm that he helped her patch up with elfroot and firm bandages, a well-placed arrow from the castle knights.

“Nothing at Kinloch Hold.” He reported to her, not because he had to, but because he could imagine what Felsi would do if Sorran or Tibbin went missing and some Warden Hack decided to play coy with what they did or did not know about where they’d gone. “Just undead, we were the ones to break the seal the Templars left behind on the tower door. Any word from the Commander?”

“Nothing in such obvious terms,” she told him, soaking up the warmth of the red embers. “But he is confident, more so than he has been in weeks, and I’m quite certain that he has left Denerim.”

“If it’s south he’s coming then the snow’ll be an ordeal.”

“One he will be capable of overcoming.” Oh, no Oghren hadn’t meant to doubt _that_. “I will find Kieran.”

“You’ll eat something first.” And she did, because Witch of the Wilds or no you didn’t turn down hot food under three feet of snow. He gave her the location of Renth’s forces and clarified the path they assumed Sigrun had cut across the Bannorn. There was a quiet understanding that Morrigan would find the others, just to make sure they’d gathered as ordered, but nothing was explicitly stated. She spent the night as a crow with her head tucked under her wing and in the morning was gone again.

A High Dragon roared over Castle Redcliffe, and Warden Constable Oghren of Vigil’s Keep kept his eye out for a familiar black bird that would tell him when and where to start smashing heads.

* * *

 

Connor lost his sense of day and night again, the High Dragon’s assaults on the castle wouldn’t let him sleep more than a few hours at a time. Whenever she appeared the castle fell into a frenzy, and when people were frightened they made mistakes.

He knew from servant chatter outside his door that his father had returned to Redcliffe. The knights who guarded his door after the _incident_ spoke in worried tones about the number of lordless sell-swords filtering into the village. Their armour was too good to be hunters and trappers looking for a place to winter, there were too many of them to be Avvar or Banns’ men. Connor knew from his parents’ shouting that his father wanted his wife to flee with Rowan, to hide away somewhere- go back to Orlais even.

“What about Connor?” She wailed one night,

“ _He’s_ the reason this is happening!”

“And the boy?”

“I don’t know what to do about-” The knights shut the door when they realized Connor could hear them.

The castle felt colder and colder, the Crows commented on the number of servants who had fled into the village, and they were bored enough to speak in Trade and let him listen to them.

The dragon ripped her claws down through his mother’s snowy garden and brought down the wall of the study where Connor and Rowan had their lessons. The attack caused all the warmth in the family wing to escape out into the storms. Connor should not have smiled so openly, but the Talon could only disapprove of him and made no mention of the tower. He was suffering enough with the lack of heat and was left frozen and shivering no matter how much embrium they fed him; he would die like this but at least Castle Redcliffe would crumble too. He hoped the tower where they’d tortured him collapsed and killed the Arl and Arlessa in their sleep.

In the Fade he kept away from Rowan. He dodged her deliberately and left safe collections of glyphs and barriers for her to hide behind. Something new had entered the Fade near them but he couldn’t find it. The infestation of demons from his arrival at Redcliffe Castle had been routed, or so it seemed, but there was _something_ lingering in the off-light and drifting between the floating isles of the dreamscape. Kindness stayed with him, a warmth against his cheek and jaw that curled softly down his shoulder.

Kindness was the reason he felt concern when the human Crow Stephano turned up dead outside the castle gates. The servants said his eyes had been gouged out and a gold sovereign placed in his mouth. The words _‘where is he?’_ had been carved into his forearms, his sleeves and gloves and vambraces removed to show the writing and his wrists were left strung together and tied to the barred door. Diego forbade the elf Mattan and the woman Anira from leaving the castle, but when the Talon was out of the room the two Crows spoke bitterly to each other.

Someone actually managed to scale the castle walls and sneak inside. The knights didn’t know how, the Crows didn’t know how, maybe it didn’t even _matter_ how. The culprit left a copy of Maferath’s Lament on Ser Perth’s bed. The shadow left Anira’s eyeless corpse hanging from a rope in the castle’s western staircase, the Antivan words _‘give him back’_ painted down the wall with her blood. When the chantry mother reviewed her corpse for burning rumours spread that she found a gold sovereign shoved into the Crow’s cold mouth.

The Talon gave his last assassin sharp, direct orders in Antivan, but Connor did not see Mattan of House Valisti alive again. The elf was there when Connor took his embrium and closed his eyes, but it was someone else completely who was gripping his hand tight and shaking Connor awake hours later.

“Guerrin. _Guerrin_.” …? He didn’t… He thought it was Kindness, he hadn’t meant to leave the Fade like… who was this? “Connor _wake up_ …”

Dark skin, straight nose, bright elven eyes… Definitely not Mattan. That elf never spoke, this one did, he… the twists of his gold hair and slender lean of his jaw, a dark cowl pulled over his pointed ears and shrouding some of his face, but not those eyes, not those concerned and golden…

“ _Zevran…?_ ”

“I was hoping to get you out of here,” he whispered, “but I don’t think that’s going to work now.” Zevran was here. How was Zevran here? In Redcliffe? In his _room_? Diego would never-

_“The Talon-”_

“Hush, Connor, I don’t have much time.” Zevran had something small in his hand, a bottle, his clever fingers rocking the little glass vial to leave a dab on his fingertip. This was the Fade this couldn’t be real Zevran couldn’t be _here-_ “What have they been giving you?”

“Embrium- every day since…” Zevran swore softly in Antivan, an oath Connor had heard before. This wasn’t real- _was it?_

“I’ll make sure Ansera is prepared.” Jylan? Jylan was here? Why? No! He was supposed to be in Vigil’s Keep, he- “This is from your Captain, Connor.”

Zevran’s fingertips painted something from the bottle across the hollow of his throat with two quick swipes. The scent of roses took a moment to reach him, and that was enough time for Zevran to take the side of his face gently and make sure Connor was looking at him.

“Do you know anything about Kieran?” Kieran… Kieran, Commander Surana’s son. The _boy_.

“Not here.” He whispered. “Not in the castle. My father knows…”

“We’re coming, Connor.”

“Spare Rowan.”

“Stay strong, Warden.”

“Spare the girl, Zevran, _please…_ ” He was too heavy from the embrium to move, couldn’t grab the assassin’s hand as he drew away and his voice was slurred when he spoke. He could smell Evie’s roses and he missed her and he wasn’t going to see her again or say good-bye or that he loved her and Zevran was here but Connor couldn’t go with him and he was going to die. He was going to die. He would never see Vigil’s Keep again because they were going to kill him and that would be the end. He’d had a home and he’d lost it. He was going to die. “ _Please…_ ”

The last thing Connor had was the hesitation in Zevran’s shadowed form when he heard the plea. The caution and reservation he wore, the full awareness that whatever the assassin told Connor next could just as easily be the truth or a lie.

“Mercy for Rowan,” he agreed softly. “But only with mercy for Kieran.”

Connor’s eyes were too heavy after that. He closed them for what he thought was just a slow blink, but when he looked again Zevran was slumped in a chair next to the fireplace. His black hood was down low over his face, his hands hanging limp and head slumped so low his chin was touching his chest.

Connor was barely able to recognize the yellow glare of the Fade before he was awake again, dreams and reality blurring until he felt the hands around his throat and saw the bloodshot eyes of Talon Diego flashing mad and wild over him.

“ _You saw him!_ ” The Talon roared down at him, releasing Connor’s throat and slamming him back down on the bed. He didn’t even know if he’d been choked or not, he was too numb to breathe. “I can smell it over the blood! _You saw him!_ ”

The door opened and there was the rattle of chain mail, the scrape of metal plates. Connor could smell roses and he heard the Talon roar at the knights in Antivan, swearing at them to leave! _Begone!_   The man with his fine clothes and grand aura raged towards them and out of Connor’s line of sight. He saw Zevran again, still slumped in the chair, a thick pool of blood having trickled down from his limp fingers, one foot planted on the floor and the other kicked out limp and crooked in front of him.

No, his hair was black. His skin was too dark. That wasn’t Zevran: it was _Mattan_. Connor could see the glitter of the sovereign from here.

 _“No tower this time!”_ The Talon hissed over him as he came back to the bed, dragging Connor up with both hands at the collar of his shirt. _“_ I won’t let that bitch dragon have the _satisfaction_ of killing you!”

 _“_ I have a message for the Arl-” Connor slurred, clumsy hands trying and failing to fend off the Talon’s grip.

“I don’t _care!”_

Connor was torn from the bed, bruising his knees when they hit the floor, legs weak and feet clumsy, fear eating up through him as he fought to breathe with the sudden movement. He was dragged into the hall and the castle was _cold_ and there was a gripping _roar_ that shattered the air around them. The dragon’s scream and the violence of her passage over the keep made the stones shift and settle under him as he was dragged: she was attacking again.

“You grace we must send word before they reach our gates!” A voice, a familiar voice, the snake who’d poured poison wine for Connor and his Wardens. “An assassin’s poisons in your quarters is a warning from Surana! South Reach and Amaranthine have all but declared _war!_ If we don’t surrender before Edgehall and West Hills ally with-”

“Castle Redcliffe has never fallen!” His father’s voice, booming back at Perth. “Their siege will break like each one before them! Teagan’s arrest will not stop us: _I_ am the Arl of Redcliffe!”

“Castle Redcliffe has never been filled with _holes_ before, my lord!” Perth did not shout, he _pleaded_. “The Inquisition has failed to find the dragon’s lair and she won’t relent in her terror! The weather has bought us time but if she isn’t stopped-”

“Do we rely on the Inquisition to keep ourselves safe, Ser Perth!?” The Arl roared in outrage. “Kill the beast! Crush the Wardens with her corpse!”

“If we just give him _back_ -”

“ _Bite your tongue!”_

Connor’s body reached stairs and he shouted in fright and pain as he tumbled roughly into cold dim light. There were armoured bodies at the bottom, rough hands that took him by hair and throat and hoisted him just high enough to move, not walk. He was dragged and the way confused him. On and on, down and down, with blood in his mouth and embrium strangling his magic.

“Lock him up!”

He heard the dragon but she sounded far away. He felt water soak through his knees and cold iron cut across his wrists, arms behind him, and a thick, heavy collar circling his throat. Chains, impossibly cold, unbearable in their weight. The collar was connected to chains that fastened to the walls, when his back felt too weak to hold his body up, his weight came down on his throat, cutting against his jaw and the cords of his neck. Panic and hopeless fear throbbed in his heart.

Iron bars that slammed shut in the darkness, and then footsteps that echoed away.

“ _Kindness…_ ” He whispered, shaking. “ _Andraste… Anyone… hear me…”_

But it was silent.

* * *

 

Redcliffe Castle was burning. In the light winter rain and through the glare of white snow it was difficult to see, it just looked like more clouds, but it was definitely from fire. The complex wasn’t in ruins but it was damaged, and Sigrun watched the webbed wings of the angry dragon peel through the air and away through the winter mists.

Rumours said the dragon attacked every day in broad daylight. She would sweep low over the village and roar up the walls, scratching and beating the heavy stones with her claws. She’d torn gouges in the battlements and shattered windows, ripped the shingles and tiles off several rooftops and burned away the scarlet banners of Redcliffe. The castle was nearly empty at this point: only the knights, the Arl’s family, the core of House Guerrin’s loyal militiamen, and servants who had nowhere else to run remained now. Sigrun pitied the last group.

Man, y’know… she really had thought they’d miss this! Crossing the Bannorn in winter was _awful_ , all those snowy fields and washed out bridges and icy roads, it was tough and ugly going. And forty-odd soldiers and wardens in her wake hadn’t made things any easier. They’d travelled several miles apart from each other, trying to make it less obvious how many of them there were so they didn’t alarm local settlements or smaller Banns.

Oh, the Commander would probably catch shit from the central Bannorn eventually, but whatever he’d worked out with the King and Queen all the way in Denerim hadn’t been _close_ to happening when Sigrun had left Vigil’s Keep. You didn’t march a hundred-odd wardens and soldiers across an entire country, you walked them, slowly, and in small groups so no one noticed until they all just happened to end up in the same place.

Even now, settled here at the cusp of their destination, Sigrun had them all spread out several hundred meters apart from each other, but most of them she’d sent a few a day into the village itself, small groups that were noticed but not stopped. The Inquisition had noticed by now that there were still a lot of well-armed people hunkering in the hills, but Sigrun had just shrugged dolefully when questioned by them.

She’d made contact with Oghren yesterday, and Nathaniel two days before that. Surana had been delayed in South Reach but he was coming. Any day now, he’d be here.

She really, _really_ hoped that he’d have more than just his own say-so to get them into Redcliffe. This was the Arl’s fault, not the village’s. And it wasn’t even Arl Eamon’s castle anymore either! It was Arl Teagan’s and he was either locked up tighter than a nug’s butt in Denerim, or he was riding south to help convince his brother to give up and release Warden Guerrin. And to tell them where Kieran was too, so they could go and get him and take them both home.

They’d take both of them home and this would be done and Sigrun wouldn’t have to stab anyone who wasn’t a darkspawn and didn’t deserve to get treated like one.

The air sucked and rolled as something large than life came sweeping around the mountain’s face, but it disintegrated into grainy black smoke beyond the edge of Sigrun’s mountainside perch. It took several minutes before the misty rain was broken up by the flutter of black wings, and with a final threaded burst of magic an injured crow twisted into the arms, legs, and bowed head of Lady Morrigan.

Sigrun had seen her land a few times, but never on her hands and knees before! She gasped and hurried through the snow to the human woman, repeating her name in a hushed voice. Her attention followed the rigid fold of Morrigan’s arm. Her hand was bracing the source of the red blood dripping onto the half-melted snow.

“Shh, shh, let me see-”

“I am well,” the witch told her, but it wasn’t mean enough to make Sigrun back off.

“That’s a huge honkin’ arrow,” she answered bluntly, able to see the thick black shaft clearly now. It was a bronto-killer, which made perfect sense because whoever’d shot it had been aiming at a _dragon_. “You are _not_ well. You will be, but you’re not.”

“I…” Yeah- uh-huh, okay no. “…will rest.”

“Yep, and you’re gonna do it over here.” Sigrun was quick to dance around her other side, letting Morrigan keep a hand and pressure over her badly wounded torso and have one arm free to wrap around Sigrun’s shoulders. Humans were way too tall for their own good, but it was manageable this time. The tent was flimsy at its base but better for several tree boughs and animal pelts draped over it. There was an iron brazier with several thick pieces of wood drying over the grate and slowly blackening to make more charcoal for it. Sigrun helped Lady Morrigan down on her back where the woman gasped softly in pain, then hurried off through the snow and across two icy hills to find the next camp. Leaving tracks was a bad thing but snow was the surface’s worst idea _ever_ and Sigrun knew who she needed.

Warden Ensign Sephri had ropes of thick black hair and a deep, dark complexion that made the white scars down one side of her face stand out, but she was a mage and she was faster in the snow than Sigrun was.

“I did not ask for a healer,” Lady Morrigan was stubborn when the two of them came back to the tent, but she hadn’t removed the arrow so _haha!_ She needed help! And Sigrun could do that, she was ready to do this.

Lady Morrigan’s armour, to protect against the cold, was a pleated bodice of black hide that Sigrun, appropriately, thought looked like dragon skin. It was studded with silverite mesh to give it strength, but the arrow’s head and haft had been too much for it. Sigrun avoided cutting the laces by having Sephri help brace the injured woman on her side and giving her room to unthread the bodice. The padded wool and then the soft cotton shift under that all came off, Lady Morrigan’s dark wine-red shawl stayed with her for decency’s sake but ended up helping slow the blood. Sigrun tightly gripped the large arrow with both hands and Sephri twisted her dark fingers with heavy magic to ease pain and do some other really cool stuff.

 The arrow came free with a wet suck and a painful gasp from the witch. Her black gloves were fingerless and let her nails bite and twist in the fabric cot under her, the black fur and leather of her tassets trying to fold back when she dragged one knee up in response to the pain. Sephri pushed the leg back down and pressed her spell into the wound.

“ _You’re clumsy-_ ” Lady Morrigan hissed in response to the magic.

“I’m not a healer, your grace.” The warden said to the witch. “But I’m the only mage we’ve got.” Sigrun expected more arguing than that from the Commander’s wife, but Lady Morrigan only locked her jaws and laid there quietly, wincing and staring at the ceiling in obvious discomfort until Sephri drew a shaking breath and declared herself finished.

“Thank you, Ensign.” Sigrun dismissed the uncomfortable woman, murmuring for her to take a different path back to her tent and companions. Sephri vanished without another look back, clearly glad to be gone, and Sigrun crept across the tent to find the only other available blanket, shaking it off and setting a small iron pot with a handful of snow in it over the brazier. She’d decided to scrub some of the blood from Lady Morrigan’s clothes and to cook up something hot to eat.

“Here, it’s not much but this’ll keep you warmer.”

“I am not cold.”

“Really? I’m _freezing_.” She draped the blanket over Lady Morrigan anyways and the other woman didn’t complain again. She gathered and bundled the blanket close, shutting her eyes and feeling along her injured side, wincing softly. Her arms and shoulders were nicked and red, not exactly _bleeding_ but definitely scored by the arrows and bolts fired in the castle’s defense. The soft undersides of both her hands were scraped and ripped raw.

More wood for the fire, a flat rock and scrub brush for the bloodied shift, more snow for more water, and a small cup of raw oats to boil up for a hot lunch. Bland but warm, it was still better than what they’d eaten in the Legion. Sigrun was ready to dump the grains in when she looked back to ask Lady Morrigan if she even wanted to eat, but the question faltered.

The witch still had her eyes closed, but now she was holding them tightly so. Her lips were twisted and pressed white between her teeth. She looked like she was holding her breath, fighting very, very hard to be quiet.

Sigrun up-ended the cup into the pot of melted snow, gave it a stir with her finger because it was still cold, and then abandoned the blood-stained cloth in favour of sitting at Morrigan’s side and taking her hand. The black-haired woman immediately shook her off, but Sigrun was stubborn too, oh _boy_ was she stubborn, and she hung on.

“I do not _want_ your pity.”

“It’s not pity, it’s comfort,” Sigrun corrected her.

“I do not want that either!”

“You’re worried about your little _boy_ ,” she urged. “So either let me hold your hand until lunch is ready, or you’ll have to listen to me talk about your family and the Wardens and how I’m not going to tell the Commander you took a fence post to the gut.”

“…It was not a fence post,” Lady Morrigan rebuked, but it sounded pretty silly.

“Okay, a broomstick,” Sigrun supplied, just happy that Morrigan’s fingers were curled around hers, because the witch’s hands were _cold_ and she was _hurt_ and her son was _missing_ and the Commander was still _miles and miles and miles_ away from Redcliffe. “You’re not okay, Lady Morrigan. You will be, but right now you’re not.” Her hand was shaking too hard to lie about it. Her whole arm was shaking. She was either freezing cold from head to toe or she was having a hard time recovering from the impaling strike. Sigrun squeezed a little harder. “But you will be.”

The witch squeezed back and that was enough to tell Sigrun to be quiet for a little bit. She’d been the Commander’s friend for a long, long time now and she didn’t know Lady Morrigan _that_ well because the witch chose to be distant. But they knew each other well enough for this, well enough for Lady Morrigan’s trembling lips and fluttering eyes to make her turn her face away from Sigrun but not order her out of the tent. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and Sigrun was okay with the two of them sitting in calm, hurting silence.

“…You use your magic to change shape all the time,” the ex-legionnaire said once it seemed like the older woman was almost calm again, her tears not _spent_ but certainly lessened. “Is it harder to become a dragon instead of a raven or a bear?”

“ _Yes._ ” She admitted with a rough breath. “It… is _exhausting_.”

“And you’ve been doing it almost every day for-”

“For weeks, Lieutenant, yes. I know.”

“You should rest.”

“Not until I have my son.”

“Then you should eat.” Morrigan didn’t argue this time, and with another kind squeeze Sigrun let her hand go so she could stir and check on lunch. The water was steaming and she rifled through her saddlebags for a sheet of cured jerky, tearing off a quarter of it and bringing it back to the pot where she diligently shredded the meat down. Salt and sweetness and something chewy to go along with the grains. She added a bit more snow to make sure there was enough water to cook the meal and then stuffed a smaller hunk of wood into the brazier to keep it burning. It was no cook-fire, but it was good enough.

When the warden scuttled back over to the witch’s side, Lady Morrigan was pale and shivering, but now also fast asleep. She rearranged the blanket over the other woman and checked her wound. It wasn’t a neat or seamless healing and a dark bruise was forming down her flank. Sigrun took elfroot from her pack and did a rough patch to help with the pain, and busied herself with applying smears of poultice to the witch’s multiple arrow-cuts and scratches, careful with her gloves so she could tend the rough abrasions on her hands and palms. Dragon claws were great at tearing down castle walls, human hands not so much.

“You’ll be okay,” she softly repeated, adding her cloak to the blanket already over Lady Morrigan, and then sitting down to her scrubbing and mending. “You’re not, but you will be.”

Sigrun kept busy, and waited for the order to move.


	34. Consort of the Inheritor

“In the name of Teyrna Anora Mac Tir, Queen of Ferelden, you will open the gates of Redcliffe.”

The road to Recliffe Village was cut between the rolling hills and fells of the Hinterlands. At its highest point before the descent to Lake Calenhad’s shores there was a defensive gate meant to protect against bandits and highwaymen. They had withstood the Darkspawn for long enough that after the Blight the guardhouse had been restored and the gates rebuilt with a stone wall and heavy doors lashed with iron.

“My Lord, we shall not.” The guardsman sounded young, his voice wasn’t firm enough for a standoff like this. Soren’s sympathies were limited as he let his voice rise from under his helmet, horse standing proud and tall under him.

“Do you bar a Sword of our Queen from crossing her sovereign lands?” He challenged loudly, “Open the gates or surrender your honour!”

“In the name of the Arl of Recliffe!” A new, much older voice shouted from the stone gatehouse. “Wrongly imprisoned by the Tyrant Widow of Gwaren, we shall not bend!”

It was a clear, cold day. The rain had washed away enough of the snow that it had frozen the trees and turned the road to a wet slop. Soren dismounted in front of his flank of twenty Silver Order soldiers, more warriors of South Reach spread in a long column a hundred-strong behind him. Arl Bryland was clad in red steel plates and sat proudly atop his own horse, black beard woven with delicate braids. Soren looked to the other nobleman briefly, well aware that Bryland had already told him that they would need a battering ram and several hours to beat down the gates if the guardsmen wouldn’t yield. This was where Bryland expected to fight the longest.

That was not how Soren preferred to do things. Bryland had brought a hundred men from his lands, the Silver Order of Amaranthine had half their numbers but double the pride under Captain Renth’s command, and Sigrun and had slipped nearly thirty Grey Wardens through these same gates over the last week, Nathaniel and Zevran had already been in the village for longer than that. Nathaniel’s men would attack from within the village if signalled and Oghren had rendezvoused with the main host yesterday when Soren arrived. Renth was behind him on her own horse, sword and shield ready.

Although scattered, they were a force well over two-hundred strong, a third of which were Grey Wardens.

The Inquisition had tried to answer a cry for aid from Arl Teagan, but Soren and Bryland, bearing Alistair’s seal and Anora’s pennant, had rightly told them to back down. These were matters for the Fereldan Landsmeet and, considering the politics of the Anderfels and Orlais, Soren was confident his Wardens could act as he saw fit without fearing reprisal from the First Warden. Inquisitor Lavellan had no business interfering.

“The Grey Wardens of Ferelden will free our brother, imprisoned by the traitor Eamon Guerrin!” Soren announced. He cut a quick gesture for a flank and Renth’s men were ready to pull forward past South Reach’s line. Swords and shields, enough cover from the Silver Order to protect him as a weave of magic spread through the air immediately around him, a prismatic shield in case one of their enemies was bold enough to take a shot at Soren from above the gate. “The Silver Order of Amaranthine will recover my son, stolen from his mother’s arms by Madwoman Isolde of Orlais! Amaranthine will heed their Majesty’s summons to spare Redcliffe Village from the devastation of another apostate born to House Guerrin and sequestered with demons! Open the gates!” He took his staff in hand, swung the black iron down and between his arms, folding the staff through the air with its bloodstone head crackling with heat. It was a slow, steady dance.

“You’ll take the Black City itself before Redcliffe falls!” Was the taunt.

“ _Open the gates!_ ” Last warning. There was fire licking at his staff and scarlet marks dancing across his awareness, weaving patterns of violence in a maze of dizzying fury.

Bolts and arrows began to fire from the gates, punching shields and scraping armour. Renth called a firm hold on her men to keep them steady, and Soren took a knee with a heavy two-handed slam of his staff against the ground. The winter air hissed and the white sky bled scarlet, two wicked lines of hate cutting the road and dancing down under the seam of the barred doors.

Fire. _Fire_. A cyclone that roared and screamed, erupting from the sodden ground with geysers of steam. One devastating pattern woven across the ground, its mate spinning rapidly twenty feet overhead, everything between them _heat_ and _pain_ and _fire_. Cured wood that hissed, popped and splintered to black, iron that screamed and bent, stones that were blown through as mortar turned to dust and the structure buckled. Limbs that were just meat cooked on the bone, burnt to char and bubbling with screams and final breaths stolen by the inferno.

Men who ran like rats, pulling back and seeking shelter when the Archmage twisted his staff behind him, snapping his hand to send the weapon spinning end over end in a wheel of crimson power. He caught and thrust the head forward, anger bleeding from his eyes and his own fire wrapping warm and ready down his arms. A blast of raging magic warped the air and struck the centre of the first inferno, blowing apart wood and iron and stone, setting barrels aflame and blowing down corpses. Magic roared and devoured without smoke.

Wreathed in hungry flames he moved forward, staff-head swinging low across the wet ground, boots splashing in the winter-soaked ground. A desperate soul with a sword raised lumbered charred and smoking from the swirling fire. His legs gave out and he collapsed in a bloody, haggard mess at Soren’s feet without attacking. He made a direct point of stepping down over the corpse just to feel the armour compress and the last of the life bleed out.

“Urthemiel fell before me; Redcliffe will follow.”

When he called the flames down there was noise and resistance from the road: Soren let the Silver Order overtake him and heard Bryland call a forward march. Fire blasted high from his staff and threaded over his Captain’s raised shield, blowing through a fortification of wood and militiamen so Amaranthine’s soldiers could fall upon them without further help. The fighting was fast and frantic and bloody, magic making short work of barricades hastily constructed. Stone and brick walls were harder to fell but fire was frightening, and fear was a good distraction to let the Silver order flank pockets of militiamen and strike fast and hard.

Twenty men and women under Renth’s command formed a spear that plowed forward, thirty more under a lieutenant’s guidance to rush into the wake of the first line and reinforce them with a second wave against the resisting fighters. Soren’s magic was launched from the chaotic space between the two waves, a few steps ahead and just as many behind. All of this had been discussed beforehand: it was Amaranthine’s War, the Grey Warden’s mission, and South Reach’s noble obligation. That was how they moved down from the destroyed gate and into the falling hills and twisted roads of Old Redcliffe, the half that had not survived the Blight. First the Silver, then the Grey, with South Reach back and sitting pretty with their men unmolested by the fighting. Soren was willing to honour South Reach’s very real support, but not to watch men and women die for a fight that wasn’t theirs. Kieran belonged to Amaranthine and Connor to the Wardens. Eamon’s head was a promise Soren would make Alistair _keep_.

The village was taken by surprise, no chance to fortify against the attack coming down the hill when there was already shouting and the clash of steel echoing out under the cold winter sun from the colourless Wardens who began their attack as soon as the blasts from Soren’s magic were heard. On the road and bearing down on the village, formations fell and waves broke into clusters of fighting groups. Teams of three to six watching one another and engaging against enemies in similar bands. Wardens mingled with the Silver Order and the Redcliffe Militia buckled and broke under the pressure, Soren’s fire lashing the stubborn ones again and again until they yielded. 

“Mercy for the fallen!” Soren shouted, his reminder clearing the din of screaming men. He reigned in his flames and would not let them catch on the village as it formed from the hills and slopes of Lake Calenhad’s rippling shore. Men who threw down their arms and dropped to their knees were spared, villagers were not to be harmed: there was a difference between a soldier wielding a sword and an angry child throwing stones, one would be cut down and the other scared back into her mother’s arms.

Nathaniel’s hidden Wardens betrayed and attacked the militia from within their own barricades, cutting throats and disarming defenses. The chantry doors were wide open as the army spilled down into the settlement and the villagers were harried inside. The Wardens shouted and flashed their weapons in the bright winter sun and stripped blades and arms from the militiamen before they were allowed to pass into the sanctuary. No weapons, no blades, but mercy for anyone who was wise enough to take it.

Runners from the village who fled to the castle were allowed to carry their frantic message to the Arl. By noon Redcliffe was secure and there was no word from the fortress draped across the looming mountain.

They were not here to ravage or pillage the Arling, but armies had needs and they were for food and shelter. Stalls were dismantled for their pieces, food and medicines taken to see to the care of the men. Grey Wardens had no business destroying property or setting fire to homes, least of all in the dead of winter. Larders were _not_ ransacked and Soren’s lieutenants kept close control over _who_ was allowed to take _what_ with Oghren and Renth ensuring businesses were taken advantage of long before homes could be considered. The inn and tavern were swarmed with soldiers, and anyone with nothing to do was given a task to keep looting and misbehaviour to a minimum. Anyone hiding in their homes as the soldiers combed the village were told to either stay inside, or were taken to the Chantry.

And the village _was_ combed. Every closet, larder, cellar, attic, and bedroom. Every back house and shed, every sanctum and loft. Anyplace where a young boy could be kept prisoner was found and searched. Zevran had already told him Kieran was not in the village and the Crows he’d found had been the team hired to hold Connor, but Soren had to be sure. He had to be _certain_ that his son and his captors were not hiding right under his nose!

Soren spoke to the Revered Mother of Redcliffe through the bars of the Chantry door: it was locked from the inside, not without.

“ _You were our Champion!_ ” the old woman shouted at him. “You saved us from the Blight and now you rain terror upon the good people of Redcliffe! For shame, elf, _for shame!_ The Maker’s Bride did not free your forefathers from Tevinter only to see you turn around and-”

“Eamon Guerrin,” he interrupted the racist old bat. “-has been found guilty of sabotage against the Arling of Amaranthine, abduction and torture of a Grey Warden, and the kidnapping of my son. Queen Anora herself has blessed this campaign and I have shown you _mercy_.”

“Your lies will not shake the faithful! The Arl will defend us!”

“You have a chantry hall full of children and families who need food, Revered Mother. You have wounded men in need of aid. You have fires that need fuel for burning. I will provide all of these things and more and there is gold enough in Castle Redcliffe to reimburse the craftsmen and merchants for what the army has taken.”

“I will not be bartered with by an _abomination_ who-”

“Then you will elect someone with greater sense to speak on your behalf, because Redcliffe has fallen and the castle is silent.” And he left the old woman to her congregation and their unanswered prayers.

Wounded, though there were not many, were tended at the inn. Compounder Ansera was given a fire, table, and the right to command two Amaranthine militiamen and their squire to aid him in seeing to the men’s immediate needs. The Formari was not here to set up shop, but even before Zevran had told them of Connor’s poor condition inside the castle, one of the few things Soren could imagine keeping a stubborn mage down was poison. Ansera was told to take whatever the village apothecary had to use as his own, and the dead-eyed elf had simply nodded and settled down to work.

Maps were brought forward in the tavern’s gutted hall. Most of the sheets were rough and crudely drawn, but orders were dispatched cleanly from over them.

“There is a secret tunnel from the castle out under the ruins of the old windmill,” Soren explained, marking the location on the finer of their maps with a small red stone. “I have five soldiers guarding the entrance. Connor’s family knows about it so it may already be sealed to keep us from exploiting it, but until we get help with the gates it’s our only other entrance.”

“Help?” Bouclier asked, but Soren chose to ignore the comment. What she wanted to hear was what followed:

“Nathaniel, according to Zevran Connor is being kept in the family wing: south wing, highest level.” He continued, “The Crow cell responsible for holding him has been dismantled, but Zevran was never able to isolate the Talon and execute him like his lieutenants. Expect him to be skilled, tactical, and incredibly dangerous while guarding our Warden. Connor will be drugged and I doubt he will be able to walk. If he’s dead, get a signal fire going so we can put everything to the torch. Kill the Talon, rescue Connor.”

“And should we find the Arl’s _family_ in the family wing?” Nathaniel asked, arms folded and dark eyes looking down at the map. He’d fought well but was grim at the reminder that Connor might not be on the other end of this mission.

“Keep Rowan calm,” he cautioned. “She’s a mage child and her home is under attack. Find some way to knock her out because restraints won’t stop her magic if she wants badly enough to get away. As soon as you have her and know what’s become of Connor, bring them both back to me.”

“And the Arlessa?”

“Find my son.”

“Do I choose who to take with me?” Not this time.

“Bouclier and Velanna.” Don’t give him that look. Yes, he was sending Velanna into a tunnel, and no, he wasn’t going to compromise on it. “You trained him, Nathaniel, bring him back.” Those words silenced any argument Nathaniel may have had in him. He nodded resolutely with a fist to his heart.

“Yes, Commander.” And:

“Before you say a word, Warden Hawke, I was getting to your orders.” He could _feel_ Carver’s control fraying from across the table, and found the other Warden with a reproachful look. “You’re going with them, but on a different mission.”

“Your command, my lord?” He asked, but it was not nearly polite enough.

“Bring me Ser Perth’s head.” _That_ satisfied glimmer was what Soren wanted to see, and Carver matched Nathaniel’s salute. “Nathaniel, I don’t care about preserving the integrity of the lock on that passage. Have Velanna tear up as much of the hillside as she has to until she finds that tunnel.”

“So _that’s_ why you…” Because her magic was best-suited to the task? Yes. He had no other reason to send her underground again at such a crucial moment.

“You have my commands, Wardens. Follow them. Rest and prepare yourselves: we attack Redcliffe Castle at dawn and I want you to use that distraction to get inside.”

Salutes answered the dismissal, but Soren turned from the table and was already facing his next order of business. One of Bryland’s knights had a fist to chest, head down in a respectful nod and he spoke before Soren’s Wardens were finished getting ready to leave.

“We’ve received a message from the castle, your Grace.” The man dutifully reported, and there was intrigue around the table.

“Let me hear it then.”

The soldier nodded and then took a step back and out of the way, gesturing for two more of Bryland’s men to come forward with not just the message, but the messen _ger_ as well.

A Knight of Redcliffe was brought into the repurposed tavern, weapons seized and arms bound behind their back. White plate armour and helmet embossed with Redcliffe’s tower, crimson robe of the order falling below the steel tassets to the warrior’s calves. They were struggling, but only to avoid being physically dragged forward.

“Unless you’ve come with an announcement of surrender, I can’t imagine why Arl Eamon would risk one of his Knights like this.” Soren didn’t expect the knight to respond to that comment, nodding to the men holding him so they brought the warrior down onto both knees in front of Soren. He was young, and almost looked like he was shaking under all that heavy armour. With a small gesture of Soren’s hand, the knight’s helmet was removed.

Ah, not a he after-all, but a young woman with thin, russet brown bangs tangled over her face and escaping the knotted braid behind her head. She wasn’t bruised or beaten, but her breathing was heavy and skipping, shoulders heaving and pale eyes wild with fury.

“You carry a message,” Soren stated. “I will hear it. What word from Redcliffe Castle, Ser Knight?”

“I- come with two announcements,” the knight’s breaths failed as she spoke, breaking her words in half so they clattered and chipped against each other. “One from Arl Eamon Gue-rrin of Redcliffe, the other- other-” Her voice went ragged, pale eyes staring past Soren’s knees to the legs of the table behind him. “The other from the mouth of my commander; my father; Ser Brendan Perth of Redcliffe.”

The shock stilled the quiet room, and the disbelief brought an open grin across Soren’s face. Oh, this was rich, this was a decadence he could not have hoped for.

“Ser Perth the Coward sends his own blood into the company of men who have sworn him dead?” He asked, taking the distressed woman’s chin in hand, and when she resisted he made sure his scarred fingers bit hard into her jaw. His smile fell in a way that left his teeth bare, his eyes wide, he hoped it _scared_ _her._ “What word does Ser Perth the Lesser carry from her father the Wretched?”

The young Ser Perth took a deep, shaking breath, curling her lips as the rims of her eyes began to glow red with shining tears. She was young, but not untested: there were scars scattered across one of her cheeks, signs of either some clawed animal or a great strike from a blast. There was fear in her, but more importantly there lingered a vain and quickly dying sense of hope.

“A command,” she gasped in his hold, but he did not release her. “For my heart and your hearing. A command that I, Ser Rebecca Perth, Sworn Knight of Redcliffe and Shield of House Guerrin renounce-” Her faith broke, or what counted for it. Eyes growing wide as if in pain, the knight struggled on her knees, tears running freely as she choked on the oath demanded by her father.

“That- that I forswear my loyalty to House Guerrin,” the knight shuddered, closing her eyes tight as she sobbed. Soren’s grip on her relented, allowing her to speak with her head bowed. “I cast down my shield, unable to bear the standard of those who commanded my father to dishonour his family. Like his father before him, mine will die in service to his Lord and Arl, but I am henceforth lordless and disgraced. I was commanded to trade loyalty for life, and in doing so am left a shadow of my forefathers’ achievements.” A heavy oath, and one Soren didn’t want to be impressed by and yet… was. Most Knights would throw themselves on their swords first, but it was different when it was a parent giving the order for their own explicit reasons.

“Ser Perth surrenders you,” Soren clarified, wrapping his own mind around the move, “because I’ve already won this battle. He’s ready to die defending Eamon but not to throw everything into the fire. Before I accept your surrender, _Madame_ Perth, what word does the Disgrace of Redcliffe send?”

“That your army,” the warrior had wrestled her sobbing breaths back under control, blood-shot eyes rising back up to see him with tears still fresh and running. She wasn’t ashamed of her pain, but he disliked how easily she spoke to him now, the venom she used would do her no favours. “Has until _dawn tomorrow_ to withdraw from Redcliffe Village, leaving our people and countryside unmolested as you return from whence you came. You have until dawn, Arl Surana, or the body of your son will be dragged through the blood and snow at your-”

He backhanded her with the full swing of his arm. His ring cut her cheek open with a wide red gash, and the flames that birthed slow and dark from his elbow and _crawled_ up to enrobe his fingers frightened back the two men who had been holding her. Madame Perth stayed on her knees where she was bound, defiant and unbroken. Soren was quite ready for a repeat of what it meant to taunt him, down to the screaming and the reek of burning hair.

“Rejoice, my friends!” Zevran’s voice chimed like a chantry bell. “Now we know where the boy is!” Of all the _inane_ things to- “Gentlemen, take our friend to the Chantry. I am _certain_ the Revered Mother will be happy to accept our army’s good-will when she sees so fine a young woman in danger of such an unpleasant scar. Let her walk, she has given us such a pleasant boon.” _No._

Bryland’s men wisely chose to wait and look to Soren before daring to move on Zevran’s order. He nodded to them, accepting his friend’s interference and turning away with his flames smothered. He listened as the young woman was dragged to her feet and hauled from the tavern without another word to his back.

Zevran was very close to him, his voice was low, and it was clear by his missing smile that he knew to _explain himself_ for that.

“Kieran is not in the castle; we know this,” Zevran explained himself in a low voice. The black fur and leather of his wintery armour and cloak disguised the fact that he had one hand raised and open asking Soren to keep calm. “You are watching the only two possible ways in and out of the complex meaning the only other way to send an order is by air. We _have_ them.”

“ _Zevran_ -” He had yet to make his _fucking_ point-

“ _Soren!_ ” His friend hissed, teeth clenched. “Ravens do not fly to lowly hovels and old cave mouths, they fly to _landmarks._ ” Because most only flew in one direction to begin with; back to a place they’d been raised, and-

“Bring me a map of the Hinterlands!” Soren shouted, and Zevran was quick to repeat the order as they both swept back to the table. The Wardens were still gathered after watching the exchange with Perth’s daughter and were quick with the task.

“We are no more than a few hours away,” Zevran was thinking out-loud as maps were unrolled, cast aside, traded for wider, more detailed drawings. “To signal at dawn and hope to deliver on the threat before the castle is completely overwhelmed- we are closer than we have been in _weeks_.”

“But where?” A day’s ride in any direction save straight out across Lake Calenhad still left-

“Fort Connor!” Warden Athras’ hand came down hard across the table, fingers planted across the sketched box of the old fortification south-east of Redcliffe, high in the hills. “It’s defensible with enough sound walls left over to shelter in, close to good hunting and remote enough for no one to notice smoke from a fire.” Athras had been sent to Redcliffe by Bouclier to gather information before Soren had even known to march home to Vigil’s Keep. There was no reason to question or doubt what the junior Warden was telling them now.

“Warden Athras and I were within _sight_ of it after only a day’s hard march from the village.” Hassick spoke up from his place at the table. He was there when Athras walked her hands back and stood up straight again. “Even if it’s not where they _are_ , it’s within range and a sensible place to tether the birds.”

“Are we all just going to ignore the splendid irony of holding Surana’s son in a place named after Eamon’s?” Nathaniel cut in, speaking to them all.

“Zevran,” Soren looked to him and found a firm nod.

“Warden Athras and Warden Hassick, do you ride with me?” Zevran asked. The two were half-way through their salutes when they both froze and looked at Soren first. Marker’s Mercy, as if they had to _ask_.

“Go!” He ordered, startling the pair so they thumped their chests hard with pledges he didn’t listen to.

“Watch your back with that Talon around,” Zevran warned him, but Soren should have been going with them, he should have been headed straight from here to- “ _Focus, my dearest friend.”_ Zevran’s voice interrupted his thoughts before they could gain ground against him, words from Antiva that he had to listen hard in order to understand properly. “ _Focus and destroy the ones who brought us to this._ And will you not send Morrigan our way?” He laughed in Trade again, “I am certain she would enjoy taking a _bite_ out of the unfortunate souls acting out irresponsible orders.”

“Just find him,” Soren begged, hands clumsy as he found the fold through his robes and armour to withdraw a small drawstring pouch and force it into Zevran’s hand. His awareness of the ring hidden inside the bag was muted, but the woven black iron wasn’t strong enough to know who it was meant to react with, only that it was being held apart from the other two members of the trio.

“We’ll storm the Black City itself if we have to.” _Go_. “You will hear from us soon. Wardens!” Zevran turned from him and carried Athras and Hassick away in his wake, the two junior members of the Order pulling on gloves and readying cloaks and weapons for the cold journey ahead of them. Soren should have been going _with them_ …

“Commander,” Oghren grumbled from the table, forcing Soren to look back down at the maps and information unfurled before him. “You can tell me to shut up since it’s not my place, but as much as I’d like to watch Morrigan make short work of Redcliffe Castle’s fabled choke-point and double gates, she can’t be in two places at once and we’ve already got you here in the village.”

“I can’t explain something that complicated to her,” he admitted, and he felt the ring in Zevran’s grasp cut around behind the building, looking for horses. “I can’t give her the name and I don’t know Fort Connor or the Hinterlands well enough to picture it.” Soren had his left hand tightly clenched in front of him, pressing his fingers together trying to feel the ridges of his own ring dig into his burnt skin. She scolded him whenever he decided to wear the band under his gauntlets because of the danger it posed in a fight, but the ring worked best when worn, not on a chain around his neck.

He could feel Zevran’s at the edge of the village. He could feel Morrigan to the east of them, somewhere cold and wet along the coast of Lake Calenhad. She was fatigued and although she was doing her best to hide it he could sense both her pain and her longing for this to be over. Now there was also resentment stirred by him daring to feel hope but remain unable to explain to her why. If he hoped too hard she would start to feel it too, and once she realized he’d given Kieran’s ring to someone to carry forward, maybe she would follow it?

“I haven’t given Morrigan an _order_ since the Battle of Denerim, Oghren. Whatever her actions, she chooses them for herself.” And whether she chose to sail ahead of the army and make one more assault on Redcliffe Castle, or tear off after Zevran and find their son, Soren wouldn’t fault her. Both ways were the right choice. He just didn’t understand why she felt angry now. He couldn’t place the cause for why when he tried to feel more of her through the keepsake on his hand she snapped back intentionally with ire. Was she angry with him or in general? Was she under attack?

“Well just tell her she’s better off _choosing_ to go to Fort Connor,” his Constable complained. “Between Mahanon’s Dalish magic, Bryland’s siege weapons two days behind us, and your spell power we’ll be just fine taking down that castle with its walls full o’ holes.” Redcliffe had faced far more than a few ballista and mages in the past, but optimism was still what they… right…

“Soren?”

“She’s moving.” He dropped the words and turned away from the table, looking back quickly with a: “ _Stay inside!_ ”

She was very angry and moving very quickly. The distance shrank rapidly and Soren hurried out past working soldiers and scurrying servants. She was moving too fast for a bird or a wolf, he’d only ever felt Morrigan move _so_ swiftly when she-

“ _Bryland!_ ” Easy to find: standing under the grey height of the griffon statue dedicated to the Hero of Ferelden in the middle of Redcliff’s village square. “Arl Bryland! Order your men to lay down all weapons!”

“Have you lost your _mind?_ ” Bryland looked at him with open shock, scandalized by the idea. “Warden Commander, your fear for your son is well-grounded, but we cannot end this _entire_ campaign-”

“I’ll have Eamon’s head for threatening my boy- this is about the dragon!” He startled the other man with that announcement.

“It is coming?” He asked, because of course they knew there was a dragon in the area: the rumours and carnage had been Soren’s entire reason for sending Morrigan on this path!

“Yes,”

“ _Men!_ ” Bryland shouted, and Soren jumped to stop him. “ _To arms, men! A beast-”_

“No!” He reached the Arl and raised his staff high over their heads, igniting the bloodstone crystal and letting it shine like a crimson beacon at the foot of the statue, catching attention and holding it tight. “The dragon attacks Redcliffe Castle only! Any man who fires on her answers to _me!_ ”

“Surana it’s a _dragon_ for Andraste’s Sake!” Bryland spat at him, “I’ll not have my men burned to ashes and eaten for some-”

“She _only_ attacks the castle, my lord,” Soren cut back, letting his staff fall to its proper height and smothering the light with a thought. “Kieran is not just the son of some _el’vhen_ mage. His mother is a Chasind sorceress, a Witch of the Wilds, and whatever power you think I have by way of the Circle Morrigan’s magic is as vastly different as the mountains are from the sea.” South Reach was _south_ of most places, stories of the Chasind and their witches were as constant as the Chant of Light. Bryland did not bite his tongue per-say, but he certainly furled it up tight in his mouth.

They could hear the wind beginning to rush, the distant bellow and rip of great wings sheering through the air.

“Men and women of South Reach!” Soren called, “Warriors of Amaranthine! Grey Wardens of Ferelden! Seek the warmth of this village, leave the square, and keep your weapons down! The High Dragon of the Hinterlands has done more damage to Redcliffe Castle than entire armies from the past! Respect the Maker’s creations and let her roam in peace!”

“You heard him! To shelter!” Bryland agreed, but he did not give Soren a comforting look.

Morrigan’s anger was burning hot and bright at the fringes of his awareness, and when the dark, lethal edge of a dragon’s spined body ripped into view across the lakeside boundary of the village there was a panicked stir from horses and men alike. Soldiers did as ordered and fell back behind houses and alley-ways, clearing the square and keeping their heads down. It wasn’t cowardice to hide from a dragon, it was good sense.

Morrigan’s wingtip cut across the water as she spread her full span and wheeled smooth and powerful across the water, cutting upward and letting a grotesque roar screech from her mouth. Truly, without the ring binding them together Soren wouldn’t have known it was her, but he saw her fatigue as she plowed up through the cold air and slowed just enough as she approached the castle from below that she could dig her claws into the stone walls. She folded her wings on purpose, dragging and ripping with all four limbs to carry herself up, massive stones and sheets of old mortar spilling behind her and dropping into the lake. But there were also arrows, bricks, barrels and other debris pelting her from above.

 _How dare they?_ But the castle was under attack and they had had weeks of this to learn how she moved and what she was capable of, weeks to figure out the only way to resist even if it wasn’t enough to stop her. Soren clenched his jaws and tried not to let his teeth grind, but the anger was licking at him anyways. How _dare_ they? He’d leave the castle as nothing but a grand ruin when he was done. Let Alistair tax and tithe Amaranthine until they bled to rebuild it, he didn’t care: he’d _burn_ it.

She reached the top of the wall where there were blades and more arrows, launching through the air and assaulting one of the towers, popping the windows with her claws and then taking to the sky, wheeling up with her wings ready to unfurl and beat down the arrows and spears that came flying after her. Soren expected her to fly away, but instead she turned the leap into a dive towards one of the four gate towers. Redcliffe Castle had two rows of gates before the main courtyard, stacked one behind the other, and Morrigan flew straight for the outer ring. She brought her hind legs forward and crashed directly into one of the towers, forcing the whole structure to buckle and crack before her wings beat and her body’s massive weight rolled over the structure and forced it to collapse. She followed through by coming onto all four limbs and leaping forward, clearing the bridge and vanishing into the covered road winding down the high hill from castle to village.

“Your mistress,” Bryland gasped behind him, the two of them still standing under the height of the griffon statue. “Summoned _that?_ ”

“In a way,” he answered, but there was a tug of powerful magic that quashed any satisfaction that answer might have given him. Why was she using magic? Why was she in this much pain? Why was she struggling to-? “No… No, they didn’t stop her.” They did not. They had _not_.

“Surana?”

She was not afraid. She was angry, frustrated and in pain that became more and more obvious the closer she came. Morrigan was not afraid, but Soren was and that fact just fuelled her anger with him. So what if it was a crutch to make her own spells and actions easier to manage? She was angry and she would _stay_ angry and there was a much smaller shift in the magic she used.

No dragon reappeared around the winding bend of the castle road, no great wyvern soared over the last principle gate at the base of the hill leading into the village. Soren said as much to Bryland: the dragon was gone.

“Over the other edge of the mountain?” The Arl asked him, and Soren lied and said he didn’t know.

He saw the raven come gliding down, but the bird barely cleared the last gate and Soren was already running to meet it. Her wing-beats were uneven and he threw a handful of glittering white magic down across the stones to catch her when Morrigan failed to land, she just dropped from several inches high and lay still on the ground. But she didn’t change form again, she was not dead, she was still in an animal’s body and she _was not dead._ She wasn’t. She was not dead. She would not die for a few slings and arrows!

“Why didn’t you come to me first?” he gasped, skidding hard and dropping to his knees, magic folding and twisting around his fingers so he could spread his hands and place a dome of light over her small body. Feathers moved with her breaths and there was blood streaked down her back. “Stubborn shrew, you should know better.” When he slid one hand down under her head, trying to lift her body onto his arm, the bird tried to jab her beak down and bite his elbow but only succeeded in hurting her own mouth against the silverite. He was thankful she still has enough energy to argue with him.

He dispelled the glyph but eased her with a hand weaving warm white light down over her back. Her wings were limp over his arm, body cradled securely and head tucked towards him, her golden eyes closed as he took her back to the tavern. Bryland had resumed giving orders in the village square, someone else was talking to the villagers inside the chantry, and Soren had given enough instructions to his Wardens that he told the ones who approached him that he would see to it _later_.

“Have hot water and a meal brought up to my room.” He told the Amaranthine army’s quartermaster, and then he hurried upstairs without acknowledging a single comment about why in the Maker’s name he had a dead raven on his arm.

There was wood ready but no fire in the upstairs room someone had claimed for him. They’d placed his shield on the door so he knew where to go and he didn’t remove it as he slipped inside. The fire was set with a thought and hand-wave, and Morrigan he eased slowly and carefully from her transformation back into the body she belonged in. He was wise to lay her at the edge of the made bed rather than the middle of it, because she insisted on sitting up before she was completely finished returning to normal.

She sat up as her first act because her second was to find him with her hands and draw his face close to hers and kiss it. She was urgent, looking for his lips and demanding their attention, and if her hands had not been shaking then Soren would have let them do as she pleased and unbuckle his pauldron and pull away the breastplate. But she was shaking, he was close to calling them trembles that robbed her strength and made it hard for her to breathe, but he gave her more credit than that. Morrigan did not _tremble_ , not any more than Soren _begged_.

“Fort Connor,” he finally whispered to her when Morrigan ceased mouthing at him and they embraced tightly. He spoke warmly against her hair, eyes closed and arms locked around her torso. She was holding him as close as his armour would allow and he knew her anger had faltered too heavily to sustain itself. She had fear nipping at her from the memory of her failed spell atop the hill, admitting to him wordlessly how she’d lost the transformation not by choice, but from the weight of everything else. Morrigan longed for her son and he tried to sooth her with what little they finally knew. “It’s the only place that makes sense. Zevran has his ring and my Wardens: they’re going to find and bring him back.” And Soren should have been out there with them as they rode away from the village and out towards the Crossroads, but instead he was here.

Morrigan burst into hard, ugly sobbing and Soren struggled to get out of her embrace and look at her. She was just as shocked as he was and when she looked at him to say something there was only hoarse, sharp crying in the way. He fought down his confusion and then reached for her hands, their fingers grasping and clinging hard at each other in a mess of things they were supposed to be better than.

“ _I can’t!_ ’

“Morrigan-“

“It _hurts_ , Soren, I can’t-”

“Shh, my love, calm-”

“ _No!_ He needs me and I- and I can’t- _I can’t_ -”

“Morrigan!” He shouted and he knew what this was. She’d found him trapped in the dark with his tears and indecision in Vigil’s Keep, and now he had her bound by terror and mad with fright. “Stand up,”

“I can’t-” He shook her. Took her by both shoulders and _shook her_.

“Stand.”

Her hands crawled up his wrists and arms, he hadn’t said she had to do it alone and he helped her rise. She was in pain and the exhaustion left haunted circles under her eyes. She was dirty and bloodied and shaking. She held his arms and Soren placed his hands tight around her waist to keep her up as he spoke to her, and spoke harshly.

“You are the Inheritor,” he told her stubbornly. “Whatever the _hell_ that means. You are the Daughter of Mythal, whom I stupidly tried to kill to earn your favour because I was twenty years old and you never thought to tell me your mother could turn into a _dragon_. Stop this.”

“I’m still _human,_ you heartless-”

“ _You_ are my heart!” he growled at her, shaking her again but with less effect because her hands were on his shoulders, head bowed but not too far. “And I gave you a son born with the soul of an Old God paired with his own. You brought Urthemiel _nine ages_ through time to live again. Not I, not Flemeth, not Mythal, not Andraste herself: _you_ did that. When we lost Urthemiel we gained _Kieran,_ and when _I_ lost Kieran you destroyed a castle that has stood impregnable for a thousand years _…”_ He tugged on her, and Morrigan’s forehead settled against his so Soren’s arms could twist around her back, helping her stand. “We have come too far to lose now, my heart.”

“I cannot use that spell again, Soren…” She admitted to him, and he closed his eyes to listen to her. “Not today, not for a few more, I _cannot_ …”

“Then do not.” He told her, because it was a simple enough solution to him. “Why didn’t you tell me it hurt you like this?”

“Because they took my _son_ …” He felt her crumple again and looked up to kiss her softly this time, a kindness she needed and accepted and only broke to gasp at him, her fingers stiff on his shoulders. “Everything aches, let me down.”

He did, and once she was seated again he heard the movement outside the door from the servants and soldiers. He was given a bucket of steaming water, a wash-cloth and pad of soap, and then a steaming bowl of hot potatoes, beans, and meat from the army’s large pot. There were pleasantries he had no time for and he dismissed the men quickly, bringing the lot back inside.

“Strip those off,” he said, taking the room’s one chair and setting it close to the fire,

“How romantic,” she complained, but complied.

They washed her hair first because she took great pride in the thick raven locks. He helped her part and brush the lengths out while she used the soap and rag to wash where she could reach, and he helped her with tiresome tasks like her cut-up back. The fire kept her warm enough, and he told her to eat despite the bland food leaving much to be desired. The bed was clean and ready for her when she was done with both chores, and with the daylight dying Soren could afford to remove most of his armour and stay with her.

“Your men need you.”

“So do you.” He took the same chair to the edge of the bed, making sure the blankets were heavy and warm over her, and then reached across her to trace the pad of his thumb over her brow. There was a soft breath of light, and she closed her eyes with a slow breath. “You’ll feel better when I’m finished.”

“I usually do…” A coy thing to say, but that her humour survived this was important to him.

Soft, gentle spells woven from strands of calming light. Duty nudged against the veil, paying close attention to the lay of lines and thoughts as Soren tended to her aches and sores. There were scars, simple wounds that frustrated him with their persistence, their refusal to heal without his will firmly undoing their damage. He twisted marks of protection and quiet, slipping them through the sheets to cradle the bed and guard her dreams- but heeded Morrigan when she grumbled at him not to do that.

“You want to dream?”

“Mmm…” It was enough of a yes for him to comply. He thought her foolish, but that was nothing new between them. He worked slow, warm magic into her blemished and abused fingers, eased the raw burns down her thighs, and settled the angry storm of minor cuts and pains down her back. She clung to consciousness with stubborn fingers and he didn’t understand why, feeding the room’s fire with another log and returning to her when Morrigan hummed something to get his attention with. Her voice was thick with sleep, eyes half-lidded.

“Rest while you have time,” he scolded gently, letting her fingers hold between his and brushing his touch across her lips and cheek.

“I want…” she grumbled back, and Soren remained there, leaning across her and atop the blankets cradling her. “My bed.” Her want made him smile. “My silk sheets… My jewels. My fine foods and wine.”

“The harvest was good,” he murmured, then kissed the hand he was holding. “Next years’ fruit wines will be as sweet as you’ve always desired.”

“Should you leave any for the brewers to use, of course...” Pah, his taste for fruit wasn’t that ravenous. “I want… my husband.” Oh.

“You’ve never called me that before,” because it was not so. _‘Wife’_ was simply more respectful than most other words the Vigil could think of for her, and Morrigan deserved respect.

“And his heir…” She’d never called Kieran that either, and there was a heavy pain in her voice now that made him lean over and kiss her brow gently. “And Leliana to change her damned laws…”

“I thought none of that meant anything to you?” The Chantry and who it said could marry whom.

“It matters to me that an army searches for the Warden Commander’s son… not his _bastard_.”

“That never bothered you in Orlais.”

“Because in Orlais a ring and a smile were enough.” She argued through her exhaustion. She should sleep. They could discuss these things at home, not here. “They didn’t know his father was elven, marriage and legitimacy were assumed.”

“My apologies, Lady Morrigan.”

“Marry me.” Her eyes were bloodshot and struggling so hard to stay awake. Her hands had stopped shaking now that she was fed and tended and warm, and she used them to touch his face again, holding him close. “I grow tired of being stubborn, Soren. My son deserves more than a bastard’s disregard. Marry me.” It made him feel warm and almost brushed away the fear of what was going on outside this room, the way Soren was aware of Zevran striking out from Redcliffe and up, and over, and away.

“And hope Flemeth will not hear of it?” He asked her softly, lips whispering against her cheek.

“She knows where you are. She’s always known that.” She was so tired Soren was quite certain Morrigan wouldn’t remember any of this tomorrow. He kissed the corner of her mouth and then looked at her again. “And from you are I am rarely gone for long. The Well gave me many things, my love, but freedom from my mother was not one of them.”

“Then yes, my heart.” He told her in a soft voice. “I will marry you.”

“And you’ll make Alistair uncomfortable?”

“At the rate we’re going, Morrigan, he’ll only have to call you Arlessa once before he’s finished stripping Amaranthine from me out of spite.”

“Once is enough.” Her eyes were closed, lips gently smiling. “…kiss me.”

He did.

And when he was certain Morrigan was safely sleeping he donned his armour, took up his staff, and left to prepare their army to take advantage of Redcliffe’s fallen gate.


	35. Little Prince of Amaranth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple people back on FFN and Tumblr were asking for a Kieran-chapter and I just couldn’t think of what purpose that would do for the story. Then I hit the wall with how to jump-start the war chapter, and I finally started wondering what’s up with that kiddo. So now we have our Kieran-chapter! And it was very useful!
> 
> The moral of the story is: Kieran stop trying to escape oh my goodness.

The first time Kieran tried to escape was when the Crow was killed.

He was cold and shivering, soaking wet, his gut bruised and aching because he was tied up and slung the wrong way over a saddle. His face was caught up in a thick black hood, body wrapped under wet wool blankets soaked through with rain and reeking of horses. His wrists were raw from the ropes lashed around them, and he couldn’t breathe between the heaving shoulders of the horse, the weight of the blankets, or the heat of his own breaths.

He’d been hit and twisted and tied up and he just had to lay there and be carried off. He wouldn’t cry. He refused to cry. Crying was important but not when something awful was happening to you- crying was for _after_. Crying was for _later_. Screaming and kicking and sobbing and begging were for _safety_. That was what father’d told him and he’d hold to it, _cling_ to it, he had to.

Because he did cry under those thick, horrible blankets, and he was angry with himself for it. He was so angry in fact that he made his face twist so it was even harder to breathe and scrubbed his face on his arms until he wasn’t crying. His face was just watering from the hot and cold and wet.

It was dumping rain, the sky open and water drenching the road in sheets. The horse reigned in hard and Kieran shouted in pain when the pommel of the saddle bit hard into his chest. He was torn down and the blankets were ripped off him, his knees already roped together so he couldn’t kick or stand or flail or do _anything_ except get hauled along by his shoulders. It was pitch black and wet out when a thick arm was slung over his chest and under his bound arms, _dragging_ him as he shouted and twisted and tried to-

“ _Enough!_ ” he hit the ground and landed in a frozen puddle of mud and rainwater, spitting with his hair slopping in his eyes. Someone else grabbed him by his bound wrists and Kieran shouted, tried to get his feet to help him but someone took him by both ankles and he could only wail and twist before he was tossed against something hard. Splinters bit into his fingers and the backs of his hands, the sides of a large wooden crate protecting him from some of the wind and none of the rain. They pushed the whole crate over like he was a mouse in a box and left it like that, the wide open spaces between each plank of wood plenty for him to see through.

And he was crying and he was angry because mother would not _want_ him to cry- he was too old for this! He could only separate the tears from the rain because one was warm around his eyes, but that was enough for him. Cry _after_ the wolf was dead, _after_ the bear had left their camp, _after_ the handmaiden snuck back out the way she’d come, _after_ father’s ring stopped burning so hot it hurt to wear.

He was shivering, shaking all the way through. He was soaked to the bone, wearing only his boots, trousers and shirt because he hadn’t yet left his room when Tagar had begun to growl and bark so fiercely. Kieran had slept in mother and father’s room because they were both gone from home and he was allowed to do whatever he liked with himself in the apartments so long as he didn’t break anything, remove anything, or try to get past father’s wards into mother’s laboratory. His clothes had been in his room where he’d changed and been ready to meet Thomas by the library, Tagar had still been in mother and father’s room and the rain had been absolutely pouring outside.

And then Kieran’s window had burst open, and he’d run to find the Mabari just in time to see Tagar take a great and terrible bite out of a formless black shadow that screamed in pain. There had been knives and blood and hard hands that grabbed Kieran and muzzled him. He’d kicked and he’d tried to shout but he’d been picked up and more men with hard voices had bound him up, dragging him out into the storm.

And now he was here, crouched on his knees under half a wooden crate, soaked to the bone and miles and miles from Vigil’s Keep, rain pelting the crate and dripping down through his clothes.

One of the men threw a blanket over the top of the crate and that stopped some of the water from duping on him. He had to crawl down on his belly on the spiny winter grass to see out to where a fire was spitting in the downpour.

They were somewhere on the road, a stable by the stink of it. So many shadows with black hoods and hushed voices. Someone with only the stump of one hand was speaking, panicking, wandering past a fire that was little more than a few sad candles fluttering in the cold air.

His fingers were white and cold but Kieran struggled with the ropes around his wrists. He remembered what tio Zevran had told him, how he’d let Kieran watch him practice, once or twice even used the finely braided cord on Kieran’s own hands. With his shoulder twisted, and- and with his elbow just so- and his thumb had to- if he…

Kieran got one thumb up and out, his whole hand slipped free after that and he sobbed with relief. But no! No crying, not yet, not safe yet. He fought with the wet, soaking rope around his knees, gasping in relief _again_ when so much of the pain went away just by letting his legs separate. He laid down flat under the crate and pressed his hands to his eyes, telling himself not to cry. He was going to get away, he was going to run away.

He felt his hand, his right hand, ring finger, and kicked his feet on the ground with a sharp wail. It still hurt, it still _ached_ from those hard, calloused hands ripping at his fingers, tearing off his ring. He wasn’t supposed to take it _off_ , it was supposed to always be _with him_ , that was the whole reason why father had _made it_ for him!

Kieran remembered it, remembered it so clearly. Before the nightmares had gone away, before Mythal had come to claim what was hers and what was beyond what they all could comprehend. He remembered the cold winter snow and father’s hand grabbing his to make Kieran run, pulling and pulling until he’d stopped and his arm had coiled protective and strong around Kieran and lifted him off the ground. And father had run with his staff in one hand and the coarse wool of the robe over his armour scratching Kieran’s face as he was carried and looked back at the men chasing them. Father had not been scared but mother had vanished and the men had shot at them. Templars, Templars chasing the Hero of Ferelden through a forest in a place called the Vimmark mountains because he was a mage and they’d wanted to kill him for nothing else.

Mother’s magic had protected them but Kieran had been too young to run through the snow, so father had had to carry him and run instead of standing there to fight. He had run to a river and forded it, teeth chattering near Kieran’s ear because in winter the water was colder than anything else, and he’d waded far enough down stream for his tracks to be impossible for the Templars to find and follow.

Kieran had thought he’d never see mother again, he’d cried and cried and cried in the cave where father set him down, alert and watching with his staff and magic ready. And then father had stopped and come back to him, hushed him and been warm and told him it was good for him to cry when they were safe. Kisses for his brow and hard fingers combing through his hair. He had told Kieran that mother was safe, and when Kieran hadn’t believed him his father had taken the braided black iron ring off his finger and let him hold it. And he had. Kieran had held that ring that made such a heavy circle in his palm, and he’d known mother was alright because of it.

Father hadn’t let him keep the ring so Kieran had given it back, and he remembered leaning under his father’s arm with their fire burning cheerfully when mother found them again. His memory wasn’t clear enough anymore to tell him how long it had been between the forded river and his father proudly slipping a new ring onto Kieran’s hand, but he still remembered both moments. He remembered them from under a rained on wooden crate and he _did not cry_ for having lost it. For having _his ring_ taken away.

There was shouting, there was blood and stabbing and something that was very, very wrong. But there was enough light from that fire and from Kieran’s adjusted eyes, and enough noise from the rain pelting the blanket over the crate, and just enough reason to _try_ that Kieran tried as hard as he could to lift the crate. And he did lift the crate, just enough to get one foot under, the one shoulder, then-

Then- words he didn’t know. Words that sounded like his uncle’s language but not spoken in a way Kieran knew. A hand that grabbed him by the scruff and laughed when it dragged him so suddenly from the crate that the planks dropped on his back and scraped down him painfully. He was lifted and shaken and taunted and then-

And then the crate was flipped back over, and Kieran was _thrown_ back down into it, and then the top came down and there was the rattle of a hammer and nails. He kicked and he shouted and he wailed and he argued and it didn’t matter. The crate was rolled, end over end, bruising him all over as he shouted and was coated in mud and ripped up grass. The crate stopped at the edge of the fire, by the dead body of a one-handed man stabbed to death and whose belongings were being picked over and scavenged. There was so much laughter and good cheer that Kieran couldn’t help it: he _cried_.

If he’d had his ring Kieran knew the Grey Wardens would have come thundering over the road the next morning. The Silver Order of Amaranthine would have crushed the Crows against their shields and under the hooves of their charging steeds. If he hadn’t let the men take his ring and do away with it then all of this would have been over by dawn on the second day.

They fed him, pried the crate open to gag and bind him up again, then loaded his crate onto a wagon and covered it in layers and layers of heavy tarp and wool. It stank inside after only a few hours. It was warmer but he could barely breathe but for a sliver of air at the far corner where he laid his face down.

The second time Kieran tried to escape was almost a week later, and he knew not where he was or where he was trying to run off to.

After four days they’d stopped binding his elbows behind him, it hurt too much and the woman who’d stuffed the food in his mouth that morning had complained loudly in Antivan about it. She’d also doused him with water to get rid of the reeking stench of the crate however, so he wasn’t going to like her. His knees were freed too, meaning he could sit up, but the gag and the wrist binds had to stay.

The nails in the crate- after several days opening and hammering the crate shut to remove him, one of them had missed the post they were supposed to be nailing closed. The iron pick was just sticking out in the dark and Kieran almost cut himself on it before figuring out what it was. It took him a day to pry the nail out, and he was sure to tuck it between the blankets and the outer edge of the crate when they removed him again that night.

It took time to find the nail again the next morning but he managed it. The nail helped him pluck the strands of the rope holding his wrists back, and when he was free then just like the first night he laid there in relief, stretching his shoulders. He got to remove the gag for a few hours and just let his tongue move over his teeth, spitting out the stale feeling caking his mouth.

Then he coiled the rope back around his hands and held the ends in one hand, the nail in the other.

They took him out to feed him and Kieran dropped the rope, jammed the nail through the Crow’s wrist, ducked and sprinted as fast as his ten-days-weak legs could carry him. It was night and it was a stone road and there was a low wall and-

And- it-

There was nothing but blackness and an impossible drop away into oblivion. The quiet gurgle of cold winter water bubbling far, far away in the darkness. The wind was sharp and Kieran’s filthy clothes were still damp, his skin itchy and raw in so many places. He stood with the stone ledge so cold under the soles of his boots, ready to lose his balance any moment and plummet to certain death in a wintery river. This was the Imperial Highway. There was no treeline to dash for or ditches to hide in. This was the Imperial Highway.

They hadn’t grabbed him because he’d gotten away just _that fast_ , and there was a voice that called out in Trade telling him not to do anything he wouldn’t live to regret. Dying was not the right thing to do, dying wasn’t what he was meant for. He had no faith in surviving the fall before him and he wouldn’t jump. Drowning in water that had frozen his father to the bone and made him stumble hard across the Vimmark mountains wasn’t how Kieran was supposed to end his life.

He jumped back down to the Imperial Highway, was seized but not dragged or thrown about as badly as before. He didn’t cry. He did not _cry_. They fed him and he ate, and they didn’t shove him back in the crate until they’d grabbed his arm and walked him tightly around their little camp a few times. One of the Crows was holding up the frayed rope from one end and laughing, saying ‘ _look at it, just look at it!’_ in Antivan. He liked the way his uncle spoke the language more.

They put him back in the crate, but after nailing it shut another Crow laughed and asked _“Should I? Marco, what do you think?”_ Marco swore at her, but the others were laughing.

The Crow dropped Kieran’s nail back into the crate, then covered him with the blanket.

After getting the gag out he made the mistake of crying out on the road the next day, hoping someone would hear him.

They climbed into the back of the wagon, gagged him, chained his hands in iron this time, and then Kieran suffered the first _beating_ of his life.

Oh, there had been threats before. Mistress Felsi was full of threats but she only made good on some of them. She’d used a willow branch on Kieran’s hands and the soles of his feet plenty of times, or twisted his ears until he’d thought they would fall off. Thomas’ uncle had cuffed him for swearing and Garevel was reluctant but brutal with his belt if Kieran or the other children did something especially awful. All father ever had to do was click his tongue in a particular way and then just… not… talk to him, and that would be enough. Mother’s dismissal hurt far, far worse than any smarting mark on his palms.

But he’d never been _beaten_. Sore places, stings, small scratches, yes. But never _beaten_. Bruises and broken skin and blood in his mouth around the gag wedging his jaw open. He was locked in the crate again. They’d hit him so hard and in so many places he wanted to throw up, every inch of him _burning_ from the pain. He laid in the crate and couldn’t even shuffle to his air hole, just laid there in the rank damp and shivered.

He wanted mother and father and Zevran and Dinah and Tagar. He wanted to see Thomas and Natalie and their uncle would take them fishing in the sunshine and Sorran and Tibben would help him pinch autumn cherry pies from the larder. They’d eat them above the stables and Warden Guerrin would catch them at some point and scold them to come down and they’d just run circles around him. He always left his workshop door unlocked when he was hungry and looking for lunch, so as long as he was gone then the Tranquil would tell them where the honey was no matter how many times they went in there just to pinch a few fingers of it for a treat.

Tio Zevran would show him how to balance and flip a dagger over his hand so the blade shone in the morning light. Warden Sigrun would watch Kieran shoot targets with his bow and always correct his posture, or tell him to imagine he was shooting at crazy things like a druffalo balanced on an apple with its tail in the air and the tail had a bell on it he had to hit. After lunch mother would turn all the crystals in her workshop so many gorgeous glittering colours and lay them out for him to play with like a massive chess board. And father would palm a few of the small ones and slip them into Kieran’s pocket just to get him in trouble with mother. No matter how many times he tried it Kieran could never manage to get a hand around his father’s belt into or any of his pouches or pockets to play the trick back on him.

They would eat dinner together and it would be buttery potatoes and rich cuts of mutton with sharp mint sauce. Father would peel and core an apple and Kieran would munch on the skin that fell off in a long coil. Mother would only have one piece while Kieran would have to answer a question from father about history or geometry or maths or laws for every slice he wanted from the plate. The last slice father would cut in half and they would share it.

Kieran would brush Dinah and Tagar on the thick rug by the fire and mother would recline comfortably against father on their couch. And either father would read or he’d have Kieran bring the chess board closer so they could play together. If his uncle was home then Zevran would tell jokes and offer to play the loser in the next round, which was always Kieran, and then Zevran and father would play against each other and uncle would always invoke _‘Tio’s rules’_ and make any pawn on the board jump to a place that could check the King. Father hated it when he did that.

Then Kieran would go to his warm bed in his room and either Tagar or Dinah or both would curl up with him, and he would fall asleep, and when he woke up all of this would all have just been an awful dream.

The third time Kieran tried to escape escalated very quickly, until he wished he hadn’t tried at all.

He had the nail. He’d had the nail for so long he’d twisted and bent it against the wood of the crate and the wagon carrying it. Kieran fitted the bent end into the lock of his chains because he was too sore to move any other way, and he fiddled and he fiddled and he remembered Zevran telling him to hook and twist, and Warden Sigrun reminding him to push and turn, and then the lock clicked.

He slipped the bent nail under the planks between the crate and the wagon and laid on his face, hands finally free and body still hurting too much to try kicking or doing anything to get out of the box. He didn’t cry, because he wasn’t safe, and crying didn’t _fix_ anything it just made it harder to _do_ anything so you had to cry only _after_ you were safe.

“ _Blood and Damnation!”_ The Crow who opened the crate while it was still daylight shouted, and then in fast, fluent Antivan called out across the snow to someone. “ _Again! Battista, get over here!_ ”

“ _Are you serious, Alexa?”_ A male voice questioned. “ _They’re fucking chains!”_

_“Come see for yourself.”_

_“I was bored…_ ” Kieran complained, closing his eyes because there was white light bleeding out at him and it hurt and he wasn’t going to cry he wasn’t going to cry he _wasn’t going to cry_.

“ _It’s not like they’re that complicated.”_ Another voice complained as Kieran was grabbed and pulled out. He landed on his feet and stumbled, sinking up to his shins in snow that crunched with a layer of sharp ice over the top. “ _Any decent urchin could do the same.”_

 _“Yes, but he’s a **noble** urchin, they don’t usually…” _they kept talking. Kieran actually looked at where he was.

There was a tower. An old, crumbled stone fort. There were trees and deep puddles of cold water, it was raining, misty and grey and horribly cold, and trees. So many trees… If he could just reach them then it would be enough. He knew these trees, he knew their bark and branches, where their roots touched stones and twisted down. He knew where to find the dry wood and clear the fire pit, a cave or just a big enough slab of rock to cut the wind. Twisted bark for a crude string, willow branches by water for a spear or bow, arrows, easily made even with only a sharp stone and not a knife. He could run, he could hunt, he could-

Neither of them were watching him: they were laughing about the chains. One had a knife attached to his thigh and he didn’t even _feel it_ when Kieran flicked it out and took it. He ducked under the wagon and _that_ they noticed, but he was fast and he was scared and he reached the horses and cut at one’s flank with the knife, making it scream and rear and startle the other three. He cut a second one with the same blade just to make the panic and distraction worse and then he _ran_.

Kieran _ran_.

He sprinted.

Moved like the wind itself and he felt the ice cut his shins and his boots slip and slough in the snow and he _ran_. His clothes weren’t thick enough for this they were ragged and filthy and freezing and he was wet and he _ran._

He hit the treeline and jumped over a rock, lost his footing and slid, scrambling with bleeding hands under a fallen tree. They were chasing him and his legs were weak and he was scared, but he _ran_. And everything was white and wet and black trees with hidden roots and sharp rocks and dead bushes and nowhere to hide. He _ran_.

He hit a stream, not deep enough for fording just a trickle of cold, _cold,_ _icy_ water that filled his boots and he ran downstream and slid over the cold algae and he did not stop. He slipped and fell and bruised himself and he _ran_. Arrows kissed the water and another bit into a tree he dodged by and he _-_

And he’d been in that wagon for too long and his bruises were too sore and his body was too cold and he was too hurt and-

 _No he had to **run**_.

“ _Mythal-_ ” It didn’t work: she couldn’t hear him she never had and she never would again. “ _Mother please-”_ He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t cry, he would not _cry;_ he had to _run_ -

He was running out of land to escape across- a cliff, a dell, he couldn’t see it right in the snow but if he banked right or left he would give them the chance to catch him and no, no, no, his body was screaming and he wasn’t going to get away and they were going to beat him again and- and- and-

Kieran stuck the stolen knife into a tree and kicked his feet against the rough bark. He found the knife with his foot hiked his other knee up, hands grasping at rough coils of tree-skin. He heaved himself up, pushed with his legs, found another hand grip, and another place to put his toes. He climbed.

What in the world was he going to do after climbing up the tree? He didn’t _know_ he didn’t have a _plan_ he didn’t _know_ he just _climbed_ , and climbed, and climbed.

A rock hit him in the back, igniting the bruises. He gasped, lost his grip and _scraped_ down the tree before raking his hands across the bark and digging in again. The pain made him scream, his nails and fingers ripping from the fall and the strain of keeping him up. The voices down below were sharp and angry.

He found a thicker branch to rest his foot on. He threw his weight as hard as he dared and put the branch directly below him, hooking his elbows around another one nearby. And he stayed there.

Kieran touched his scraped face to the back of his raw, white hand. It came away with streaks of blood that matched the stinging pain under his jaw. His hands had ugly welts on them, fingers shaking, he couldn’t climb like this. This tree was close to no others. He couldn’t jump to another. Its leaves were barren, and in the dead of winter there would be no bird eggs or berries or _anything_ for him to grab and stuff in his mouth for the sake of simple hunger. This wasn’t a tree whose bark he could eat.

He’d just stranded himself twenty feet up a barren tree in the dead of winter. No weapon, no food, no way to escape, _injured now_ and no doubt in for a beating that would leave him _blind_ and _broken_ when they were done. He hadn’t thought this through, he hadn’t thought _at all_ , and he didn’t know how to think his way _out_.

“ _Father-_ ” Standing on the branch he hugged the tree, pressed the whole side of his face against the rough bark. He shut his eyes because he wasn’t supposed to cry and Kieran didn’t _want_ to cry but the tears were the warmest things he _had_ and… “ _Help me-_ ” he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. There was no way out of this. He couldn’t even climb _down_ now, he- “ _Father **please** …”_

He’d never been this cold before. He’d been in forests in winter. He’d been on barren plateaus with nothing but stones and pebbles for miles. He’d been in endless snows so far south the world felt like it was ready to end, but Kieran had never been this cold. There had always been mother’s warm hands and animal pelts, father’s gentle magic and his constant presence. He’d never been alone with the winter sun sinking white and breathless over the horizon. He’d never been so cold and so alone and so hungry and so _dark_ before…

The voices hounded him. They shouted to each other, they swore up at him. Rocks followed sometimes, they hit the branch, chipped off the tree trunk. They made a game of it as they struck up a fire on the ground. Night fell and the Crows laughed and Kieran _froze…_

If he fell asleep, he’d fall. If he relaxed too much, he’d fall. If he tried to climb up, he’d fall. If he tried to climb down, he’d fall. He could smell the wood smoke from the fire below him. It was too far away to warm him, but the smoke was something. It was familiar. Kieran closed his eyes and let his teeth chatter, and he tried to remember anything but being here.

He’d once asked his mother if she’d ever been scared. She’s laughed and told him no, of course not. Kieran had known she was lying but he hadn’t said anything about it, it hadn’t been _him_ who’d known but the way he’d been able to see _through_ people before Mythal’s Calling that had told him. When Kieran had asked his father the same question, he’d received a different answer.

“ _Of course_ ,” his father had told him, looking at him so curiously. Kieran’s uncle had been in the room with them: Kieran’s bedroom at the Vigil. He’d been feeling sick and awful all day and mother wasn’t there so Zevran had been tending to Dinah with his soft smile and dark hands. Tagar had curled up over Kieran’s feet, and father had been laying on the bed next to him with a book of stories open for them to share. He’d been wearing his blue robe, his nice one. Kieran remembered the velvet brushing against his lips, his arm threaded through the gap between his father’s elbow and body, watching the pages of the book go by. There had been a dragon inked onto one of them and the dragon had made him remember that part of him that wasn’t there anymore, the part that had read mother’s fear despite her denial. So he’d asked the question.

“ _I think it’s very sensible to be afraid sometimes.”_

 _“But it’s not very brave.”_ Kieran had challenged, but his father had just made a funny noise at him.

“ _We don’t do things because we’re brave, my son. We do them because we must.”_ He’d let the book fall, he’d brushed his far hand against Kieran’s hair. Let it touch his cheek. He’d felt _better_ with just that gesture. “ _It helps not to **show** when we’re afraid, but fear in itself is useful. It reminds you that you’re in danger, and that you need to be alert and pay attention to what yourself and others are doing. If you just ignore those things, then…”_ Then you wound up stuck in the middle of a tree in winter with kidnappers throwing rocks at you. Yes, Kieran understood that lesson now, thank you _, father_ …

He stayed up the tree all night and at dawn the next morning there came the horrible, jarring _thunk_ of an axe against the trunk. It had to hit the tree twice more before Kieran realized what was happening, but his frozen hands were too numb and hurting to grip the bark and try to get him to climb down. When he tried to tell them as much the Crows laughed because they didn’t care. The worst moment of his life was when the tree’s frozen body, after almost an hour of swinging and striking, finally groaned and began to splinter and crack.

Kieran _screamed_. He was not afraid and he was not scared: he was _terrified_ and he screamed to show it. He shut his eyes, held the tree tight and felt himself falling with it and crashing into the icy ground. Branches didn’t just snap, they _burst_ with shards of cold wood and bark, twigs and debris flying everywhere. They hit the ground and Kieran lost his hold on the tree, slammed into the branches he’d held on to all night, and felt his arm _snap_ with an electric bolt of pain through his body.

 _“Aaah!_ ” Between breaths, between short, sharp, hysterical breaths. _“AAAH!_ ” He screamed, he shrieked, he made whatever noise would bring him help faster because his arm- his _ar-_

He was grabbed, he was dragged through the snow. He was kicked and he was hit and they yelled at him. And Kieran didn’t know what happened after that because the next time he could think he was sitting in a cold stone place.

He was _sobbing_ and he didn’t know how to make it _stop_. His arm was set and bound and splinted and it _hurt_ , it _hurt more than anything._ His mouth was bloody and one of his eyes wouldn’t stay open and it _hurt_ and it _hurt_ and- and he couldn’t stop _crying_.

He was in a room with three stone walls and a wooden barricade with a door in it. There was a chain from his ankle to the wall, the door was locked. The blankets from the wagon were thrown in with him, along with the branches and leaves and twigs and dirt of a dozen summers’ waste. The light came through the holes in the walls, old daylight and nothing else.

The wooden wall was warm because there was a fire on the other side. He huddled against it, the filthy blankets over him, because he didn’t know what else to do.

The door didn’t open, there was a single plank that swung side to side and that was how they gave him food. He didn’t know what he ate except that it was hot and he didn’t have to chew it, just spoon and swallow, lick the plate, then stuff it back outside. They threatened to break his other arm if he tried to steal the spoon and Kieran believed them, it was just a shallow wooden scoop anyways, nothing useful.

A day and a night and he felt a little calmer. He knew he was calmer because he felt boredom. There was nothing to do and he was too scared to try and talk. He arranged the brown pine needles in a patch of weak light, tried to remember glyphs from old dreams he didn’t have anymore or that father used for his spells. He tried to make a griffon. A shield. The Amaranthine bear.

A day and a night and Kieran ate less frantically but was still thorough with the wooden plate. It was flavourless gruel, but he could smell meats roasting on the other side of the wall. Rich, fat ram, more than enough for him to have some. They taunted him in Antivan and in Trade: naughty children got gruel and were thankful. If he acted out again then they’d let him eat snow.

A day and a night and Kieran wanted to _throw_ the plate through the hole in the door but letting himself get that angry made his arm hurt too much to bear. He walked the few paces allowed to him in his cold cell and finally something snapped in him and he remembered his father and how he spoke and how people _listened_ and how-

“My mother is the Inheritor!” He shouted, petulant and angry, “When Mythal’s Heir finds you she’ll make you pay for this!”

The Crows laughed. Kieran was so angry he kicked his bound leg again and again and again just trying to wrench the chain out of the block it was bound to. He ended up tripping himself, knocked his elbow on the floor and hissed in horrible pain for his efforts.

“ _My father is the Hero of Ferelden!_ ” He yelled through the pain, because he was angry! This shouldn’t have been happening to him! “ _He commands the Grey Wardens, warriors of the blood taint!”_

More laughter-!?

He carried on because Kieran had _nothing else_ to do in this awful cell and if he didn’t get angry he would cry again. He _would not_ cry. His parents had asked one _simple_ thing of him if he was ever in danger and that was to _save his tears_ for when there was actually a place and purpose for them. The purpose was to feel better, to feel safer, to be _alright_ again, and right now Kieran was none of those things! No crying!

His next meal was _snow_ and this time, yes, even if it got him a beating, Kieran threw the stupid plate back out spoon and all.

All the Crows did was sit at their fire and laugh. They talked about Redcliffe Village and Connor _knew_ where that was and he knew from father’s _maps_ how far away it was from home. He knew his father did not _like_ the Arl of Redcliffe but what he didn’t know was why the Crows kept talking about mercenaries and soldiers filtering into the village. Why they commented over and over again to each other about how the Inquisition made them nervous- but that just made Kieran feel better!

The Inquisition was near to them! If Kieran could escape again, and not run in such a wrong way again- if he could find the _Inquisition_ of all people, why- he knew Lady Montilyet and Commander Rutherford and Madame de Fer and Sister Nightengale and The Iron Bull and so many other people from Skyhold! All he had to do was make it to one of the Inquisition’s camps and they would protect him, there was no way they’d allow armed men to attack him- he was just a kid! Of course they’d help, he just had to-

They served him snow again the next day and Kieran was so angry he spent the rest of the daylight kicking at his chain. He couldn’t escape if he was chained to the wall, he wouldn’t get more than five feet from the door if he had a broken arm that wouldn’t let him roll over in his own sleep without waking him up.

Kieran threatened them with what his father would do to them when they found him, even if he didn’t know how he would manage it. He told them what his mother would do, what Thomas’ uncle would do, what Warden Guerrin and Warden Sigrun and Warden Oghren and Mistress Felsi and Seneschal Garevel and Horsemaster Gaveth and Captain Renth and Chamberlain Shianni and _everyone else_ at Vigil’s Keep would do! And how much they wouldn’t live to _regret_ any of this because they were all stupid horrible awful gutless evil people!

“Do forgive my interruption, _little prince_ ,” one of the female Crows coo’d to him from the bolted door. “But do you have _any_ idea what is going to happen tomorrow?”

“The Witch of the Wilds is going to gore you all to _death_ ,” Kieran hissed back in the sharpest way he could.

“ _Doubtful,_ ” she laughed, and then sighed on with: “But the Arl of Denerim _may_ just order yours.”

“But that-” No. No, that wasn’t how it was supposed to work, it- “But my father’s an Arl! Another one can’t just-”

“ _Who_ did you think paid us so handsomely to take you?” The Crow taunted in a heavy voice. “You did not think we took such care not to kill you because we felt like it, I’m sure. Truly, you have been both very amusing and _excessively_ irritating…”

“But he can’t-”

“We shall see what the dawn brings, _little prince._ ” The loose plank moved and in came a wooden plate with a heaping pile of gruel topped with a thick slab of roasted meat. His first meal in _two days_. “Enjoy your meal, and your sweet dreams. They will no doubt be your last.” And then- and then he lost his appetite completely…

This didn’t make any sense, this wasn’t _right_. In Ferelden people didn’t _do_ things like this, mother and father had both told him so! Orlais was different, Orlais it was all about doing things quietly where no one could see what was happening and this counted as a scheme like that- but this was _Ferelden!_ No one had known who Kieran’s father was in Orlais just to _stop_ things like this from ever coming up, but now-? And another _Arl?_

He was too scared to eat. Hungry, yes, and in pain, yes, hunger pains that screwed tight into his gut and wrenched at him. But the fading daylight scared him more than the fact that his food began to cool and grow chill. Kieran _did_ eat, but he did so in the dark.

He didn’t kick at the chain as the temperature began to drop and another _freezing_ night crawled over them. He pulled at it, kept tension on it, tried not to let the chain rattle so loudly. A Crow went up the ladder propped against the wooden wall: thump, thump, thump. A familiar sound after so long in here. He pulled on the chain and he pulled, he knew the block it was connected to had started to wear. The chain was old, the stone was older. He’d had nothing else to do for hours and hours every day for days and days on end but pull on it, fight with it, kick at it.

He wasn’t going to get it to come out by dawn. He didn’t know what he would have done even if it popped loose with a thought. It was just something to do. Something less frightening than- than _nothing?_

Fear was supposed to help you do things that needed to be done, but if you had _nothing_ to do then- then what- how- he…

The night crept by, hour by hour, at times Kieran was just counting seconds and minutes and trying not to lose his mind. They were just going to open the door and slit his throat-? Or were they going to string him up a tree? Or cut him up into pieces, or-?

 _Thump, thump, thump_ signalled the changing of the guard high atop the stone tower. Kieran watched where he heard the noise of one person coming down and their replacement climbing back up. _Thump, thump, thump._ He looked through the small hole in his wall, the corner chunk missing and the light beginning to- s-starting to…

He couldn’t _breathe_. He wanted to go home, he wanted to go home, he wanted to _go home_ and be anywhere but here. Every breath hiccupped in his chest and it didn’t even feel like he was crying anymore, just tears dripping wet from his chin and jaw. He crawled as far away from the door as the chain would let him and put his back against the cold stone of the tower instead of the warmer wood. He could see the door and he could see the light.

What Kieran could not see was the form of a raven dancing through the pre-dawn glow. He didn’t see it’s luscious black feathers graze the cool wind and carry it forward. He had no idea how it arced and twisted through the air and honed in on the shambled remains of Fort Connor below. He didn’t see the raven sweep by overhead where the hired man held out a gloved hand waiting for it to land.

What Kieran _heard_ , though he could not see it, was when that raven pulled up again into a dive. Came down in a swoop instead of a glide, and then suddenly that raven was not a raven, but a _bear?_

* * *

 

_“AAAH!?”_

_Crack_ went the bones and _BAM_ went the weight that smashed the top of the tower so hard the roof _buckled_. No black wings no blunt talons, but claws four inches in length and fur silver-threaded and thick. An arm of rolling muscle and unbearable rage that raked armour from body and slashed bones to fragile chunks. A bellowing, roaring, _deafening_ blare. The shattered body of a dead Crow was kicked across the battlements, and the trap-door leading down was shorn from its hinges, claws and arms making short work of the small opening, rending it wide enough for shoulders and girth and hind legs to drop again. Buckle _again_ , make the tower _shake._

“ _A flying **bear!?** ”_

Over the screaming and the shouting and the _panic_ Kieran did not hear the ratchet and fire of a crossbow bolt ripping through the air- but the Crow who screamed when the bolt shattered his shoulder was much closer. His partner on the fort’s fallen wall was kind enough to step in the same direction as the wind, and never saw the bolt that shredded her throat. The open snowy space between the treeline and the fort’s ruined defenses was easy to cross in the plain dawn light when there was a great Hinterland bear gutting the shabby remains of the reclaimed tower and covering fire from a marksman fuelled by darkspawn taint.

The first Crow to flee the main body of the tower got as far as the exterior wall before a white hollow-point spear cut the air with a deep voice and shocked into his soft gut. He was walked right past by the elf in sturdy black armour who wanted this business concluded _swiftly_ and _very painfully_.

Zevran let the Dalish warden reclaim her spear by pulling one of the glass vials from the bandolier spread across his chest, and with a practiced whip of his arm he launched it away from him. The fragile glass exploded against the chest of the next person to come screaming away from the wild animal inside. The thick red concoction hissed and bubbled, burning skin and eating leather, easy prey for the violent red edge of the short sword the Black Shadow raked easily across his neck to part head from shoulders.

He let An’eth have the next one, more and more frustrated and willing to show it thanks to the _size_ of the cell at work here. An’eth’s shield slammed the retreating figure back into the building, and the Warden’s sword ham-stringed the other woman before she’d finished recoiling from the blow.

Zevran swept in and to the side, blade out when he was finally attacked by someone. Someone who knew how to fight because she used his parry to twist her own hand before striking out again like a viper. This did not concern _him_ in the slightest, because the dagger in his off-hand was slicked with something far too awful to require a proper killing blow. Normally he was quite happy to dance with a skilled fighter but this morning he was not nearly so accommodating. The room was little more than a hovel with a low table, broken crates for chairs and a suspicious wooden wall and door. Morrigan was fighting her way down to this level, and Zevran-

 _Ack_.

He closed his eyes because he did not want more of that green _reek_ to get into them from the Crow’s own belt of surprises. He circled, swung with the point of his off-hand ready to stab through skin and felt only the unfortunate bite of old wood. He could hear her just fine and the ring of steel when he blocked her was comforting. Just not as much as-

“ _Agh-”_ As _that_. In went the sword, down came the dagger, and with a truly necessary _rip_ , dead was the bitch.

“Is that all of them?” Warden An’eth asked him, and Zevran heard the tell-tale rush of wind that accompanied one of Morrigan’s transformations.

“It should be.”

“Ser- your eyes?”

“They _hurt_ ,” Zevran admitted, trying to open them briefly before deciding that no, no that hurt far too much. “It’s not permanent. The Commander will fix them for me if he has time, he’s quite good at that. But really, Warden, I’m more interested in-”

“ _Kieran!_ ” Yes.

“ _Mother-?”_

In _that._

* * *

 

Kieran saw none of it. He didn’t understand it either. He heard the shouting and the screaming and the panic that overwhelmed the tower. He screamed once when the ceiling over his head suddenly _buckled_ and spilled old sand and dust down over him, but stayed where he was and struggled to understand that there was _bear_ on top of the- it had flown? It-?

“Mother?” It didn’t come out right. It was so quiet. His voice wasn’t working. “Mother!” No, that was hardly any better, he- it was like a bad dream, his voice wouldn’t- “ _MOTHER!”_

The bear _screamed_ and Kieran watched claws split the boards over his head, shredding and tearing the wood to pieces. A long grey muzzle edged with sharp teeth forced its way down into the room before retreating, and with a great gust of black wind the cloud surged down towards him and- and- _and…_

“ _Kieran!_ ” And she was on top of him, arms twisted around behind him, almost laying on the ground with him and she was here and she was real and he- couldn’t- _stop- crying-_

“ _Mother…!”_ Her black hair and her gold beads and her warm hands and her kisses because she kissed him again and again and he was shaking too hard to hug her. He just wanted to _hug her_ and-a- _“Aah- ow…”_

“What-?” Kieran had never seen her cry before- he’d _never_ seen mother cry and no, it made him cry harder, it scared him even _worse_ than before- why was she crying? No, _no…_

“What’s wrong with your arm?” She gasped, hands cupping his face and her golden eyes wide as her touch ghosted over his bruises and the deep cuts from the tree and- and his arm- it-

“No, mother, don’t cry-” Kieran babbled and he felt her magic bloom between her hands. Mother always said she was not a healer but that didn’t mean she couldn’t sooth. A bad cut, a deep bruise, the sorts of things you needed carefully looked at, yes, she could handle. On principle, no, she probably wouldn’t: scrapes and cuts and rashes and bumps, twisted ankles and sprained wrists, all things that could heal naturally, but _this…_

“What did they _do to you?_ ” She gasped, brushing her hands over his face again, cradling his jaw, holding his shoulders and spreading a palm down his chest and back: the places he’d been kicked.

“I tried to _escape…_ ” She kissed him again, and she kissed him and it helped but he couldn’t stop _crying_ … “ _Mother…”_

“Your father will heal it, I will take you to him,” Mother told him thickly, terror in her voice. And then she saw the _chain…_

The wooden door burst inward and Kieran screamed, he jumped and reached for her and he couldn’t help himself, wailing in pain because his _arm-_

“My thanks, Warden.” That voice-?

“ _Uncle!?_ ” he shouted against his mother’s shoulder, and after a few heavy steps he felt a strong, warm hand thread down through his hair, and then a heavy kiss planted itself on top of his head. He couldn’t reach out because his uncle was on the same side as his arm, and he heard Zevran already asking about it.

“What happened to your eyes?” Mother asked with a thick, strangled voice.

“I’m flattered by your concern, but never fear. If Soren can’t spare a moment for me then I know a balm that will handle things nicely.” Uncle- his eyes were swollen shut, the skin red and weeping tears. “Why do I hear a chain?”

Mother guided his hands down to the manacle on Kieran’s leg, and he watched his uncle’s face twist in a frightening way before he brushed it aside with a smile and reached behind himself to his tool-belt. Several slim bands of metal came out, and even without his eyes to help him Kieran waited barely a minute before the iron manacle clicked open.

“Before we get out of here,” Zevran said as mother’s hands quickly brushed healing light down his leg to sooth the chafes and stings from the iron cuff. “Your father entrusted _this_ to me, to give back to you.” His blind fingers moved easily to pull a small drawstring pouch from under his armour, and he delicately withdrew… a band of woven black iron, held between his thumb and- “Ah…”

“Tio Zevran?” Kieran asked, curious by the way Zevran suddenly paused, his ring so close but now looped around the top of his uncle’s thumb. And now mother had frozen too? “Mother?”

“Morrigan… what does that…?”

“I do not know.” Why was her voice so hush still? What did what mean?

“Athras!” Zevran yelled, and the noise made Kieran jump a little, cradling his broken arm with mother holding him to her. “Is Hassick here?”

“Yes, Ser!” Two voices answered.

“I am compromised, Morrigan,” his uncle continued smoothly. “But between the three of us Kieran will be safe.”

“I… I don’t-”

“You’re faster than any of us,” Zevran argued. “Hurry.”

“Mother?” She leaned down to kiss him again, but that just worried him _more?_ “Mother what’s wrong? Tio, what’s wrong with my ring?”

“Ahh,” that was not an answer, uncle!

“It is his, Zevran.” Kieran was given back his ring, and he fumbled to push it on to his right hand. It… took a moment… There was mother, here, anxious, relieved and yet _so worried_. Then there was father, who… who was… _what_ was…?

“ _Mother?_ ” he pleaded, looking for an answer now to Zevran’s question. His uncle had an arm around him and Kieran looked up when his mother stood, that dark, haunted look on her face. “Mother, what’s going _on?_ Why does it feel like that?”

“ _Will_ the two of you not just stay in _one piece_ for _one day_ for my sake?” she berated him rather than answer, and Kieran could already feel the answer for why. She’d cried because Kieran was safe and crying had made it feel better. But now something _else_ was wrong and something _else_ was scary and something _else_ was unexplained and dangerous. “I will return for you, Kieran. Zevran, keep him safe.”

“From his first breath until my last, Morrigan.”

“Mother- _wait!”_

But with a rush of magic, mother was gone.

 


	36. The Dawn Has Come

 

Redcliffe Castle was perched high atop its namesake; a stone and clay rise which towered several hundred feet over the calm waves of Lake Calenhad. From the castle’s fortified double gates and monumental walls a road was cut down through the hill, weaving its fortified way towards the village at its foot. A final wall and gate-house guarded the road to the castle, and it stood proudly at the far side of a stone bridge spanning one of the larger tributaries cutting through the village to reach the lake. Redcliffe castle had stood for over a thousand years, and while her defenses could be bypassed, they had never been properly defeated in battle or siege.

Redcliffe Castle had never been forced to stand in such poor condition at the very opening of a campaign either. They were in the very heart of winter, and while snow blanketed the Hinterlands and spat down on the castle, hovering over the lake’s warm waters brought far more rain than ice. Her great hall had been gouged open by Morrigan’s claws, flooding the fortress’s main complex at a time of year when dragging the lumber and stones up the hill to rebuild her was next to impossible. The patches wept away the heat that the army and denizens needed just to survive, the keep’s windows were shattered and boarded up from repeated attacks. One of the great towers had collapsed and let more wind rip through the open wound, and her walls, oh, her rent and crumbling walls. One of her formidable gates had been crushed just yesterday, and all of this made Redcliffe ripe and ready to fall.

Despite all the damage to walls and morale, Soren still could not afford to lay siege here. Redcliffe castle would hold out for months, maybe even years: she was protecting fewer people than normal and had a full belly of provisions after gathering her autumn tithes and tributes from the Banns of Redcliffe. If Teagan had not called to his Banns yet from Denerim, then it would only be a matter of days before Eamon did it himself. An all-out revolt in the Hinterlands would drive Alistair and Anora to either defend the campaign or forswear it and thus they wanted this conflict kept between the Arls. It had to end _quickly_.

The night Zevran left across the Hinterlands Soren had one of the surrendered militiamen dragged out of the chantry and given an answer to Eamon’s garish taunt. Alistair’s sealed command of surrender, complete with a royal declaration demanding Eamon’s return to Denerim on pain of forfeiting all his family’s lands and titles. The declaration was issued to the castle along with Soren’s own conditions: the immediate release of Warden Corporal Connor of Vigil’s Keep, and the safe return of Kieran son of Morrigan, Ward of Amaranthine.

Morrigan promised to return for the battle before taking wing to Fort Connor, urgency lending her strength so she could out-fly any natural raven. It was understood that any messenger bird sent from Redcliffe would be ripped out of the sky by her talons. She did not move as swiftly as a bird as she had as a dragon, but she had told him in tears that she couldn’t hold the spell again without rest and Soren trusted Morrigan to know her own limits.

The night passed under a dark storm of brutal anxiety, but when Eamon answered the surrender demand with chanting and bonfires and loud voices from Redcliffe Castle’s walls, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden signalled his attack.

Eamon had withdrawn his men from the first gate at the village boundary, it was too far and his forces too few to man and support it properly. His men would be of more use closer to if not _within_ Redcliffe, so the only barrier to the army was a simple crank mechanism to open the door. Sigrun scouted, climbed, and hiked her way around the edge of the wall with her team, and while Soren roused and rallied his men in the dark pre-dawn hours, the first gates rattled and groaned their way open.

Wardens at the head to spear forward into whatever danger they encountered, Amaranthine soldiers behind them to support and enforce the line, South Reach at the back again to keep control of the village and warn them of any flanking forces from either the Banns of Redcliffe or the nosey Inquisition. There would be no surprises unless Soren authorized them, Nathaniel’s mission being a prime example.

They marched in the dark without torches, the mages in his company igniting orbs of blue magefire to line the high hills of the upward road. He marched at the front and at the head of his Wardens, shield on his back and staff head lit. Sigrun scouted ahead and along one ridge, her form difficult to track, not to mention the hand-signs she sent back. A soft trill accompanied the successful dispatch of anyone Sigrun caught hiding in the shadows with a waiting bow or stockpile of vicious supplies. At one point the east ridge over their heads erupted with shouts and yelling, but the arrows were fired across the wet terrain and not down at the army. Soren’s staff lobbed a rocket of fire into the gloom, the explosion echoing ominously across the hill.

 _“Amaranthine!”_ A voice shouted triumphantly when the screams and shouts had died. “ _Amaranthine!”_ The army howled to answer the cry, swords striking shields, voices rising higher and higher with waves of sound that rumbled up the pass towards the shambled castle gates.

Soren’s shield was on his back, sword at his hip and staff in hand. His griffon breastplate was clearly displayed over a gold archmage robe which covered the rest of his armour save his pauldron and gauntlets. The robe was cut short at his knees to let him move easily, sleeves ending before they could interfere with his hands. His helmet protected his head and the silverite gorget and chainmail would shield his throat and chest.

He wanted Redcliffe to _fear_ him, and that was why there was no silent approach on the gates. Magic bloomed from his chest, a barrier of pale energy, and he stepped forward with his staff swinging between both hands. He swung the staff like a sword and launched a blast of crimson fire off the end, lobbing the spell forward and driving it ahead until it reached Redcliffe’s guard tower and exploded. The light reflected off armour and figures who ducked away from the heat, and Soren separated his vanguard from the rest of the army with a raised fist and simple command.

The vanguard was Oghren on his right with Warden Mahanon on his left, Warden Sephri a step behind, and a wall of shield-bearing Grey Wardens who walked with their crests high and ready to take any shots meant for the archmage standing between them. Amaranthine’s standard fluttered behind him in the grip of a young soldier, and high on the ridges were two companies of archers and marksmen, one led by Sigrun, the other by Warden Hestel.

The bonfires burning across the castle’s high walls were meant to signal the keep’s distress, _this_ was Eamon’s way of speaking to his Banns. There were at least two fires Soren could see from the ground, armoured men and women scurrying frantically here and there as the dawn began to slowly lighten in the eastern sky. Morrigan’s devastation was plain to see by the heaping rubble of the collapsed guard tower, the shambled remains of the gate left twisted and protruding from the stony ground to impede their path to the second, reinforced gate that led right into the castle courtyard. Once they were inside there would be a rain of arrows, bolts, hot oil, stones, and anything else the occupants of Redcliffe Castle could throw at them.

Their resistance didn’t matter to him. They would start this fight in the dark because Soren would have this battle won by _noon_.

“ _Men and women of Redcliffe!_ ” He shouted, and a weave of magic projected his voice further through the dark air. “ _Your gates are sundered, your walls are crumbling. By Order of King Alistair Theirin, First of the Bannorn, Lord of the Landsmeet, any who lays down their arms walks free with their titles and honour intact. You are commanded to surrender, or face the wrath of our combined forces. The village has been taken, the roads are controlled, and no help will come for you. Surrender now, and free the prisoners wrongly taken from Amaranthine.”_

The answer was crude shouting and bellows from atop the walls. Taunts and jeers and the hiss of arrows. One of them struck his barrier and shattered with a burst of red light, nothing but cinders.

“Lavellan, Sephri, clear the gates.” He ordered, “Oghren, the first horn.”

Oghren put the silver mouth of his war horn to his pursed lips, drawing a deep breath and forcing a low, steady tone to rise and spread through the cold gloom. It made the air tremble and voices rise slow and long in the dark from the army behind them.

His calm orders made the two junior warden magi raise their staves and begin to cast, the vanguards’ shields raised to protect them in the dark. Mages belonged behind lines and walls of defenses. A single arrow or bolt could make a huge difference in the impact they could have in battle but Soren needed to be upfront and he was willing to risk the two other magi with him right now for this first strike.

Soren’s feet settled on the paved road, staff head dropping low and swinging up across his body, the steady current of cold liquid calm gathering between his lungs, pouring liberally through his ribs. The trickles and streams of magic felt so cold down his bones that the crimson flames that licked over his fingers and engulfed the staff were a pleasant contrast. He’d attached the jagged iron of a simple blade to the base of his staff for this battle, the wide teeth meant for ripping against steel plates and tough leather.

Lavellan completed his casting first, words of the _el’vhen_ whispering over the Dalish mage’s tattooed lips before his heartwood staff left his hands to float unobstructed in front of him, legs braced low on the road and arms rising with the effort to _move_ and _grow_ and _change_. The fallen gate shifted and groaned, the stones from the toppled gate house rising in the slowly creeping dawn.

Arrows hissed and cracked from the two ridges, the archers hidden by the shadows and sparse ground as they aimed over the battlements and Sigrun’s whistles called volley after volley. Wardens behind the vanguard pulled out longbows and listened to a lieutenant who ordered hold- then _fire!_ Mark, and _fire!_ Return fire scratched down shields, bombarded Soren’s barrier, and his flames continued to twist and loop as he pressed lines together and made marks dance.

Sephri roared and planted her staff hard in the ground. The piles of broken stones and bricks kicked into the air like leaves caught in a terrible wind. They fired straight up and looped like they were tied to long strings, slamming back down and literally raining on the battlements. Men ran and the startled shouting showed how effective the stone rain and arrow volleys were at disturbing their ranks. Sephri’s spell surged and spun until the remains of the destroyed tower were all but cleared away, the shambled gate hovering bare inches off the wet ground with Lavellan’s pale spell gripping it in a net of starlight. 

“On your order, Commander,” Lavellan confirmed in a tight, focused voice.

Soren swung his staff’s crimson head out straight and held it sharp and flat. The magic focused and two disks of cascading red light flashed through the air, one below the solid gate, the other as high as he could send it without distorting the spell: right across the battlement’s where the courageous few were still standing. The inferno _roared_ to life and engulfed the wooden gate, its sealed doors and the cross-hatch posts of the layer behind them washed with red light and intense heat.

Redcliffe had taken his _son_ and the thought made crimson fire change to sharp orange. They’d taken away _Kieran_ and there came slashes of livid yellow. They’d taken his _Warden_ and the colossal _hatred_ of white heat made the wood and iron _scream_ as the mortar holding the stones started to hiss and crumble.

“ _Lavellan!_ ”

Mahanon grabbed his floating staff out of the air, twisted himself in a tight spiral and swung his staff up with a great volley of pale blue light. The hovering gate reacted like a giant had knocked it away, the wedged wooden barrier flying straight back through the air. It crashed into the fire, through it’s weakened sister, and there was a massive outward explosion of flames and anger into the courtyard. The inferno continued to roar and burn through the magic set at base and top, but the way was open now.

“Second horn!” Soren shouted. Sephri’s hands were filled with twisted blue magic, staff whipping fast and blinding atop her raised arms. Her spell stitched its final aspects in place and the sky rumbled, the dawn wind rising, and down across the battlements came several successive, crashing forks of blue lightning. “ _Oghren!_ ”

Oghren summoned two great blasts from the war horn and then settled it at his waist. Soren’s constable pulled his great silverite war-hammer around into both armoured hands and quickly advanced beyond the shields of the vanguard.

Wardens pushed forward and the great inferno burnt itself out as they mustered and a force fifteen-strong followed Oghren’s personal charge. Soren’s hand bloomed with light and stubborn pride, throwing a pattern of warding to the edge of what he could see through the running soldiers: just beyond the smoke and cinders of the breached gates. There would be no drawing Redcliffe’s forces _out_ from behind their walls, but the glyph of warding that bloomed would help Oghren attack the first line of resistance.

The vanguard advanced but a second line of twenty wardens was fast to overtake them, reinforcing the first line. Soren barked a sharp order and Sephri escaped the shield wall to join the second company, her magic blazing as they crossed the bridge and the younger mage leapt into the fray.

 _Now_ the noise and battle began in earnest. Soren’s vanguard was slow on purpose, the army chanting and drumming loudly up the hill as a third company rushed the gates, pushing the first two through against the castle’s defenders. The rest were approaching quickly, the crash of steel and strong bodies waking the cold morning. Soren’s staff dipped and twisted, threads of healing magic and power meant to reinforce will and focus minds falling off his weapon’s head and keeping men on their feet from a safe distance. The Wardens on the two ridges were cheering, saving their arrows as most of the defenders they could see had vanished to fight off the portion of the army pressuring the inner defenses.

Sigrun would keep her people on the high ground in case anything came up the hill to flank the main host. Soren let a fourth and fifth company surpass him before finally bringing his vanguard the rest of the way across the bridge, through the shambled remains of the smoking gate, and into the chaos and screaming of Redcliffe Castle’s courtyard.

“ _Forward!_ ” The air hissed and cracked with arrows, rocks pelting down on the attackers from the high battlements circling the courtyard. Soren’s staff launched a blast of fire in a high arc, anger propelling the flames until they exploded in a terrible curtain of crimson that threw down the few defenders who failed to flee the spell. Lavellan’s magic rent the fragile walls circling them, bringing down one of the buildings supporting several more archers.

Grey Wardens were fierce in combat, even the new ones only weeks past their joining had the taint roaring raw and heavy in their blood as the fever pitch of the battle began to ring out. Shields swung with more power and held up better, longswords that parried and slashed down through hide armour and kept going, spears and halberds and axes that chopped down men like trees. The sandy courtyard was splattered with blood, burned by magic, and the steam from gasping bodies and bleeding warriors fed the fury.

Soren did not want Redcliffe castle to survive this attack. Sephri’s lightning set fire to the stables and the Archmage himself dashed the battle with a wall of crackling scarlet heat to disturb Redcliffe’s frantic but failing warriors.

Duty clothed him in purpose, fortifying his will and strengthening the current of his magic as his staff danced and magic soared through him. The veil around the castle was so thin Soren could almost feel the spirit fighting at his side, an aura of empowering magic radiating from his steps, saturating the air with radiant energy. The Wardens protecting him from immediate attack were instilled with the pride of a battle hard fought and soon to be won, their fatigue eased, pains buffed away by the swirling tide of magical energy. The field of magic drained him, but its effects were well worth the taxing cost.

He did not _want_ his Wardens to die here. He had brought the entire Ferelden Order but he would not sacrifice them. The Silver Order were already pushing through the gates when Soren’s vanguard finally suffered from the wild fighting. The Archmage twirled his staff overhead with sparks of defensive magic wheeling down around his quickly moving feet. An arrow sparked from his shoulder-guard, a sword’s edge gouging the back of his helmet before his staff wheeled to knock the attacker away. He swung hard and the bloodstone head cracked hard into the helmet of a knight trying to lunge for him, the serrated blade on the haft pulling down fast and brutal over a steel-clad pauldron.

Fire burst and ripped from the ground, engulfing one knight who dropped his sword and screamed in terror and Soren lunged with his staff’s blunt head. He hammered hard on knight’s knee, wrenching the limb and dropping his opponent to a crouch. With a fluid swing the bladed end came stabbing down with both hands and all his weight to ram the serrated edge through the fallen knight’s throat, forcing, pinning, and finally cutting deep enough to kill. Blood surged up, thick and fatal. Soren kept both hands on the staff but turned to cover his own back, pulling down on the rod down with the casting stone in front of him, thick ropes of fire spewing from the bloodstone and into the face of the warrior who’d run up to avenge his comrade.

Darkspawn were faster than these souls.

“ _Clear the gates!_ ” he commanded, ripping his staff free from the dead man and focusing on what threats were immediately present. His magic had not calmed, but the taint was beginning to gnaw painfully now in an effort to support to much exertion. “ _Take the keep!”_

A high horn blasted through the air, a rolling cry that brought a heaving pause to the battle. Knights and soldiers fell back from their fighting, leaving Wardens and Amaranthine Militia reigned in by their own honour when their opponents turned away in a sudden withdrawal. They kept their swords and shields, threw down no weapons and gave no sign of surrender, but they answered the horn and they fled the fight up the high steps of the castle.

 _“SURANA!_ ”

The cry was enough to make him stop and breathe around the unspoken order to pursue. Flames were rolling around both his hands on his staff, eyes scanning the boarded windows and buckled roof of the keep rising in front of him and his army. The rest of the Silver Order were _walking_ into the castle’s courtyard now, completely overrunning the complex as the stables and service buildings continued to burn unchecked.

“ _Blood magic wretch! SURANA!”_ Eamon…

“Disgrace of Redcliffe!” Soren raised his voice, stepping forward between his men who were quick to step aside and salute him as he passed. He walked past the bodies, heard the groans of some not yet dead. He felt the veil, already so thin and frail in this place, wear weak and raw against the suffering. “Cease this slaughter, Eamon! Surrender on your king’s order!”

“Anora’s _rat_ will not presume to speak for the blood of Calenhad!” Soren came through the ranks until he found the open space at the base of the keep’s steps, stubbornly aware of how Zevran would hate to see him exposed without his vanguard or barriers.

“Your pride has brought your family’s legacy to its knees within an hour!” He shouted back, blood still dripping from his staff. “Surrender, Disgrace of Redcliffe!” Eamon was just as exposed in the creeping daylight, his red armour was panels of tinted steel and fine leather, white fur stitched over his shoulders and around his vambraces and boots. A thick helmet with a white plume protected him the way Soren’s silverite afforded him the same curtesy. The old man pointed one finger at him, shaking with rage and spitting with anger.

“How dare you bring Divine Justinia’s _murderers_ into this keep!” Eamon raged down at him, “Grey Wardens; bastard shadows of the Blight! Your own personal army of blood thralls and demons!”

“Acting on their King’s Orders to restore the Warden _you_ dragged away in the night! Your gold, your name on the contact, and the neutrality of the Grey Wardens violated by _your hand!_ Surrender, Eamon!”

“A curse on your so-called ‘ _neutrality_ ’, Rat!” Soren’s outrage was rising, the taint biting and _ripping_ through his flesh, poisoning his blood with hatred. “You stole my son when his family needed him most, and I will _pay back_ that curtesy when you ride like a madman to find yours hanging by his neck from Fort Connor’s walls!”

He threw down his staff, drew both arms back and swung his hands out with cold liquid force peeling freely from his chest. Magic that didn’t have time or focus to change state, pure spiritual power that interlocked and found its purpose mid-flight, weaving into the mouth of a beast, the bars of a cage, a prison to cut and constrict and _enflame_ his target.

A quarrel punched down between his breastplate and right shoulder, another went right through the palm of his left hand, denting the metal plates spread across the back. A proper, powerful arrow bit down hard through the right side of his gut, shredding silverite but still caught enough that the head sank into him, not the entire shaft.

Soren clenched his hands, heard Eamon _scream_ when the magic caught and crushed down on the old man and began to _burn_ and _rip_ and _strangle_ him. He gasped and took a knee when another arrow struck through his left arm, but he kept the spell and heard the chaos breaking through the courtyard.

 _“ATTACK!!”_ Captain Renth’s voice soared, two shield-bearing soldiers already in front of Soren and protecting him from further shots from the keep. Oghren’s horn roared through the morning light and Amaranthine’s combined forces were bellowing with it, outraged to the last by the taunt and arrows. Soren did not release the spell, _would not_ release the spell.

 _‘You took my **child** from me-_ ’

Arl Eamon Guerrin of Denerim, Disgrace of Redcliffe, used his last breath to howl like an animal before Archmage Soren Surana, Warden Commander of Ferelden, Arl of Amaranthine, Sword of Gwaren, Hero of the Fifth Blight, and Master of Vigil’s Keep, crushed him to death. White hot lines of furious and unbreakable magic crushed and squeezed and clamped down on the old man; breaking bones, cutting flesh, welding armour, and searing the hands that tried to save him. Desperation to be freed from the horrible fate met the tidal will of the archmage who _refused_ to relent.

Arl Eamon’s crushed and mangled body took a full blow from Warden Constable Oghren’s war-hammer just to get the hanging corpse out of the way, and the same hammer was the first to aim a splitting blow at the doors frantically trying to shut and bar themselves against the onslaught.

* * *

 

Redcliffe castle had exactly one other entrance besides the main gates: a tunnel that led from the ruins of the old windmill down and along a winding path into the belly of the keep. It was a family secret entrusted to Surana during the Blight by Teagan Guerrin, doubtless the same secret that had allowed the Inquisition to infiltrate the castle during the Breach. Whatever reservations the Guerrin Family may have held about keeping the way open when an increasing number of important people knew about it, they clearly had not acted on them: with a wave of her staff and the pull of powerful magic, Nathaniel watched his wife expose the tunnel mouth in the pre-dawn hours before the attack.

Nathaniel, Velanna, Carver, and Genevieve vanished through the secret passage together, the warriors further back with Velanna close to Nathaniel. The two of them were quieter than the younger Wardens, Nathaniel by virtue of his training, Velanna thanks to several years spent under ground in tunnels and darkness he had _not_ wanted her to think about again.

Elves were better in the dark than humans, not by a great amount and Nathaniel had never known Surana or Zevran to ever be _pleased_ with the prospect of moving underground, but better was better. Velanna let her touch roll down the flat of one of Nathaniel’s daggers to give it a soft, delicate glow as they travelled, but no brighter than that. The passage was long and though it had lamps and torches in places, none of them were lit. They’d hardly been in the passage for ten minutes before his wife nodded to herself and let her fingers shed enough light to speak silently and clearly for her: there was plenty of air, the tunnel was not sealed.

 _‘How do you know that?’_ Nathaniel asked back in the dark, Velanna’s only reply had been to dim the light down and swallow the company in darkness: the cover she wanted before touching his face gently and easing him down to briefly find her lips. He still couldn’t decide if he was happier to see her back in Grey Warden armour, or if he would have preferred knowing she was safely back at the Vigil’s library…

They moved quietly but _quickly_. The army had a move direct path and there would be attempts to parley at the gate, then the fighting, then Maker only knew what would follow. They had to find Connor and get him out _before_ then.

They knew they’d arrived when there was something to hear except the soft breath of Hawke and Bouclier trying to be quiet in the darkness. Words in muffled voices, fading through the shadows and bouncing distorted and quiet against the walls.

 _“I will not consent to this madness._ ” An accented voice was the first one Nathaniel actually understood. “ _You waste our time with this: he is dead.”_

“ _He is **not!** ”_ A woman’s voice pleaded, thick with the sound of Orlais. “ _I will not leave him here!”_

_“You paid me to poison him and he is poisoned. He will not survive our escape: you **paid** me to ensure he could not.”_

_“Then I will pay you to undo it!”_

_“At a moment’s notice? Impossible. If you and the girl are to escape, then we must leave now.”_

_“Lady Isolde, we have wasted too much time-”_ Another voice from another man pleaded. _“I’m sorry it had to come to this but we must hurry, even if we could bring him he would only slow us down.”_

_“No! Monsters, both of you!”_

Nathaniel sheathed his dagger when he saw faint red torchlight beginning to filter through the shadows. He crept far enough ahead with Velanna a step behind him that when he reached the last corner separating the argument from the Wardens, he could hold his hand up and signal clearly for Carver and Evie to see his hands.

 _‘Hold._ ’

“Lady Isolde, the Arl commanded us to take you and Lady Rowan from this place!” The man was a Fereldan by his accent, and Nathaniel used the sound of his voice to cover the roll and flip of a leather case. A small round mirror, angled just-so to let him get a reflection from around corners like this one. Wonderful little device for the deep roads that he slid out now under the noise of Lady Isolde’s shouting.

“I will not let Surana take him back!” She carried on like a crazy bat. Nathaniel saw her white gown, an idiotic thing to wear if she’d expected to go escaping anywhere. A knight in plate armour and girded with belts and a pack meant for travelling, several more men-at-arms behind them, maybe five and all. And then there was the friend in a thick black mantle of fur, finely dressed but far more calm than anyone else in the cramped and dirty space that Nathaniel now recognized as a prison. “He only needed a bit more _time!_ It was you and Eamon who had him _thrown_ down here like an animal! If you had only listened to me and let him see Rowan and I every day from the beginning then by now he would up there with his father! Connor would _not_ have turned against us if you had only _let me_ -”

“Then you and your husband,” the man in the mantle said, and Nathaniel could hear his Antivan accent clearly. Found the Talon. “Should not have overplayed your hand so quickly. From the _beginning_ , Ignacio cautioned you against attacking Surana personally. He told you to keep this family conflict within your _own_ family without involving his. By Andraste’s holy light, I do not even know the man but what made you think he would sit cowering in his castle once he realized what you’d done? Had you left House Surana alone then this scheme could have run its course for months longer. Had the Grandmaster not unexpectedly _expired_ under the most _interesting_ of circumstances, Lady Isolde, then it could have gone on indefinitely. It is not the Crows’ fault that you Fereldans have no sense of subtlety.”

Five guards. One Knight for Hawke to take care of, the Arlessa, the Talon and… there she was. Small thing who was right to look scared, black hair in this light, wrapped in a cloak and hidden against her mother. Isolde had already said Connor was down here so if Nathaniel couldn’t see him then that meant he was locked up, and if he was locked up in a place that reeked of dead rats and rot then on principle all seven men had to die. Nathaniel didn’t make the rules, he just enforced them.

A quick look to make sure the others understood. Carver had travelled this whole way with his sword out and helmet on to prevent him from having to arm up in the quiet. Genevieve unhooked her shield very slowly, keeping it from scraping or clicking as she did so, drawing her sword only when there was conversation and argument around the bend. Velanna was watching him for his signal, both hands around her heartwood staff.

Crows did not surrender and Perth’s life was forfeit. There was no point doing the whole ‘ _surrender in the name of the king’_ bit as Nathaniel nocked an arrow, stood straight, and pulled the string back tight to avoid the give-away of the bow’s creak in the dark.

“If I must go in there and slit his throat myself to finish this then I shall.” Haha, oh, how quaint of the Crow to say that. The Arlessa started shouting, and when her knight Ser Perth raised his voice to ‘ _reason’_ with her she began screaming for him to let go of her. The little girl began to cry, and Nathaniel waited until he heard keys rattling a metal lock.

Three, two, _one._

Step and turn, bow up at full draw. Aim, shoot, keep going, and behind the safety of the next wall at this large T of the passage. There was a shocked sound and the heavy fall of a body, the Arlessa was screaming and the other three Wardens rushed to attack.

 _“For the Grey Wardens!”_ Nathaniel bellowed, his voice filling the space with Hawke’s raging bellow and Genevieve’s sword and shield bashing each other terrify the people they charged. Velanna’s staff swung as she moved behind the cover of the two warriors, and with a raised hand she clutched her fingers tightly and snuffed out the flames carried by the soldiers.

It was over very quickly. Who could expect simple men-at-arms to stand strong when armoured foes with glowing eyes came rampaging at them in the pitch black of a musty tunnel? Nathaniel drew his glowing dagger and shouldered his bow, sprinting down the corner and into what was left of the fray. He heard the Arlessa screaming and her daughter close to her, his dagger’s light just enough for him to see the open door of one cell and grab it quick so he wasn’t struck by the iron bars. Then the cell slammed shut again and the lock clattered shut. Nathaniel stuck his wrist through the bars and the dagger’s light helped him see the frightened edges of the Arlessa’s screaming face as she backed away in the dark, clutching her child before she hit something and fell over it, throwing her arm back over whatever it was. Good, if the girl and her mother were in the cell then neither would accidentally end up on Carver’s sword.

“Light!” He ordered,

“ _To the wall!_ ” Velanna shouted, a simple warning before the end of her staff erupted with thick streams of crimson fire. Men screamed and at least two were already dead. Nathaniel recognized the heavy something at his feet and saw his arrow’s fletching near his knee, the shaft planted through the shattered cheek of the dead Talon.

His satisfaction with that kill and the screaming around them formed a smile Nathaniel wanted to frighten the Arlessa even more with. He grinned through the black iron bars and saw her twisting away under a taut chain strung between the wall and- a collar? A collar worn by a prisoner. A bowed head and ratty, filthy hair with a copper tone to it, unresponsive, chains at three places around the thick iron clamp closed around the prisoner’s neck. Nathaniel’s smile was gone-

“Connor!” No, he couldn’t look like _that_ , he- “ _Connor!_ ”

The Arlessa screamed at him with a small knife clutched in both hands and pointed at him, her daughter clinging around her waist, head tucked behind her. The firelight finally died and there was no more screaming, just the crash and sing of steel in the dark.

“Velanna- light I said!” Nathaniel shouted, and on command an orb of pale white light bloomed from the end of her staff, another one coiled around her hand.

“ _Coward!_ ” The space was small and Hawke’s voice shook it, his sword raised with both hands when he parried a downward blow from the Knight captain’s sword, slicing out and back in a wide sweep that made Perth cry out and stumble back, sword-arm wounded where the longer blade caught him under the arm. The Knight hadn’t had a chance to put on his helmet, but he’d dropped as many of his burdens as he could to pull his shield on to his arm. His feet danced and stepped with years of practice over the wet stones of the cold dungeon floor, and he took Carver’s next blow properly across his shield so it glanced down harmlessly.

“Attacking women in the _dark-_ ” Perth gasped,

“ _Poisoning wine!”_ Hawke’s foot crashed against the low shield, trying to knock Perth off his feet but only succeeding in making him back up defensively before striking out with his shorter blade again. “Kidnapper! Liar! _Coward!”_

“Stop-”

“ _Your life is **forfeit**!” _ Carver roared, ignoring a second protest from Perth. Velanna didn’t know whether to illuminate the duel or the cell Nathaniel was gesturing for, so she was careful to quickly cross the narrow passage and come next to the door, the light shining against the bars and towards the two fighting men. Nathaniel tried to see into the lock when the cell door wouldn’t open again, sheathing his blades and looking for his picks.

“I _am_ a coward!” Perth shouted and that was too much, Nathaniel’s head snapped around where he was kneeling. The declaration paused Carver’s onslaught, the Warden stopping hard with his sword over his shoulder, unable to bring it down again on the shield that dropped wide open. Perth didn’t drop to his knees, but he let his shield hang and his sword was held in a reverse grip, impossible to fight properly from, and he bowed his head so he wouldn’t have to look at Carver. “Maker guide me, I am.”

“You _admit_ it!” Carver shouted.

“Of course I do! I am no fool, Warden.” Perth told him, his face aging by the moment as he stood there in the light of Velanna’s magic. “I hid behind my loyalties to justify what I knew my honour could not handle. Whatever truth was in my words when I met you and Warden Connor in that tavern, they mean nothing in the face of my actions. I knew the poison would follow, I knew the Arlessa was waiting, I knew what we were doing as we fled Denerim, and I did nothing to stop it.”

“Spend your last breath wisely, coward.” Carver snarled at him in the dark, bringing his sword back around in front of him. He was fully prepared to fulfill his vow, but honourably. “Your daughter surrendered to the Warden Commander yesterday after we took the village. She is unharmed in the village chantry.”

Relief made Perth’s shoulders fall and his back bend like the old man he was. He removed his cloak and let it fall on the floor behind him, setting his shield at his side as he knelt with his sword’s point biting the stones.

“ _You coward!”_ the Arlessa screamed, but no one was listening to her.

“I cannot surrender,” Perth said, the only difference between that and what he was doing was that his sword remained up, not laid down across the floor with his shield placed atop it. “But I beg for the life of my Lady and her daughter. Let them flee to the Hinterlands: the Arlessa’s gold will carry them to Orlais where they will never be seen or heard from by their enemies again.”

“The hinterlands are vast and dangerous in winter,” Nathaniel cut in, looking shrewdly through the bars of the cell. His heart skipped hard when he saw Connor’s bowed head, but there could be only one thing at a time. Perth wouldn’t attack because he was out-numbered four to one, but if they all suddenly turned their backs on him there was no guaranteeing he would stay down. “Where were you going to find help?”

“I will _never-_ ”

“Fort Connor.” Perth answered again, interrupting his lady who screamed at him again for his betrayal. “The same place where the Hero of Ferelden’s young son is being held.”

“Was being held,” Nathaniel corrected. “The same shadow that cut down the Crows in this castle was dispatched to the fort yesterday with an accompaniment of Grey Wardens. Your daughter’s threats from her lord were enough to point the way.”

“Then although you have no reason to believe me, know that neither her nor I were privy to the attack on House Surana until a few days ago.” Perth sounded like he was pleading. “Andraste guide my soul to the Maker so I may face judgement for all I have been party to. I do not know if it is a demon summoned by the girl or simply the madness of age that has driven Eamon to these lengths, but I cannot bear it much longer.”

“Fulfill your vow around the next corner, Hawke.” Nathaniel told them both in a firm voice. “Don’t let the girl watch.”

“I beg for their lives-” Perth repeated,

“You’ve confirmed where the boy is meaning I have no reason to harm the Arlessa.” Nathaniel explained, though he did not feel he had to as Perth rose to his feet and was prepared to walk to his death. “And I’m under orders to allow _no harm_ to the girl. Bouclier, get over here with that shield. Velanna, I want more light and your magic.”

“Perth!” The Arlessa shouted as Velanna finally cast her light into the cell, revealing the black chains, the iron collar, the fact that the man bound there on his knees had not _moved_ despite the chaos and voices around him. “Perth! _Brendan!_ Do not give up like this! Fight them! _Perth!_ ” Carver led Perth out of sight over the corpses of his men, passing Genevieve who came to where Nathaniel was kneeling and trying to force the lock to open where it had jammed badly in the fighting.

“ _Connor!_ ” The captain shouted, horror scratching her voice as she grabbed the bars with both hands. She jostled the cell door and lost her grasp of the King’s tongue, “ _Connor! My love, look at me! Connor!”_

 _“He is not yours-”_ In her mother tongue the Arlessa was _aghast_ and Nathaniel was ready to bark at her to be silent. Genevieve trampled his words with a violent spew of Orlesian, the iron bars all that kept her from tearing the Arlessa to pieces with her bare hands. The girl was clutching her mother’s side and screaming in fright from the chaos and fury around her, and Nathaniel found half the key that had opened the door broken and jammed into the lock in front of him.

Had he a choice in the matter he would have left the two women in the cell and gone to join the battle raging over their heads. But he was here for Connor, and Andraste herself appearing wouldn’t be enough to make him turn around and walk off now. Not with him just… Maker, he looked like he was _dead._

“Damned thing’s jammed, Captain, beat it down.” Nathaniel stood and got out of the way, making space for Bouclier to angle the sharp edge of her round shield down and slam it hard against the lock, trying to physically beat the mechanism off the old door. He moved away and Velanna quickly stepped to the door on Genevieve’s other side, reaching one thin arm right through the bars, twisted blue light folding around her fingers as she eased her magic out to reach the defeated Warden.

“He’s breathing,” Velanna told him, reaching so far that her face and torso were pressed against the bars, trying to reach a little closer to him. “I can’t- Nathaniel we need to get him to Surana. Valor hasn’t answered me in years, I-”

“Just keep trying, we’ll get him out.” He told her.

“What did they _do_ to him?” He couldn’t answer that.

Around the dark corner Nathaniel heard voices, then several quick clashes of steel and a final, meaningful gasp before it was quiet again. Carver reappeared in the light as Genevieve slammed her shield again and again on the lock, doing significant damage to the box as it began to split and bend. He seemed shaken and stared at the violence being done to the door for a little too long, then saw Velanna’s magic and what it was reaching for.

“Here-” Carver gasped, touching Genevieve’s shoulder and making her pull back briefly. He took her shield and hefted the silverite for a moment to test it, then took over beating down on the lock. Inside the mechanism wasn’t so complicated, just a hook and camp that kept the door from opening, but the iron was thick and despite the rust it was stubborn.

The Arlessa retreated far into the cell with her daughter, which was not far at all. It took Nathaniel several more minutes before he realized the girl was sobbing her brother’s name, that she was pulling on one of the chains holding him. Connor and… Kindness? What did that mean?

Velanna gasped and tried to wedge a little closer again, struggling as the lock came down further, something in it coming loose.

“There’s a spirit!” She grunted, threads of pale light moving from her fingers and trying to creep down lower, to reach Connor’s chest. “It’s helping- it- I can’t hear it _but_ -”

“ _Father, Connor, Perth- Kindness please-”_ Rowan wept, pushing through her mother’s grip to reach her brother only to end up fighting with the Arlessa. Genevieve took her shield back again, Carver just stared with haunted eyes through the bars at Connor. “ _Kindness help- Kindness- please…”_

“Let Velanna in there first, she’s the healer.” Nathaniel cautioned the two warriors. The looks he got back for it were equal parts heartbroken and outraged. “She’s the _fucking_ healer, you two!”

Two more swings and _finally_ the damned thing gave with a loud crack and a solid stomp from Carver’s metal boot. They pulled the door open with a horrible scream and the Arlessa began her harsh hysterics again, pushing her daughter down into the corner of the cell and jumping up with her tiny knife and shrieking. There was so little space that Velanna had no room to wield her staff, and no matter how small and badly-wielded the blade was, Nathaniel was the most agile of them and the one to take the Arless’s knife hand by the wrist and land a punch square in her gut to get her down.

“What part of _no reason to kill you_ skipped your ear?” He snarled at her, at the woman who’d had her own son drugged and carted across the country, the one who’d paid to have him _poisoned_ and then _locked up_ in her own castle dungeon? He twisted her arm hard until she dropped the knife, and pushed her to the filthy cell wall. He held her like that, just sodding held her, because she was frantic and scared and _so bloody stupid_. “Shut up! We’re more his family than your entire sodding castle!”

“Hawke search the Crow for the keys,” Velanna ordered. “We need him out of these chains.”

“Found them.”

“ _I_ will hold her.” Genevieve’s voice came from behind Nathaniel and he looked at her quickly, to make sure she _meant it_ when she said _hold_. “Help him.”

Nathaniel realized it had grown quiet when he took the keys from Hawke, quickly slipping the head of one into the back of the iron collar. Connor was on his knees with the collar and its chains keeping him up and hunched over, leaving the lock exposed so Nathaniel could insert, twist, and have the whole thing open up like a sick clam shell. It took him and Hawke together to hold him so when the clamp actually opened it didn’t pinch and rip out the front of his throat. Nathaniel moved to the arm restraints binding his wrists behind him, and the filth in the cell showed he’d been here at least a day, as many as three.

“Connor look at me,” Hawke urged, hands holding the mage’s face. “Connor. Connor _wake up_ … Please wake up, Connor, _c’mon_ …”

“This is _your fault_ ,” Genevieve hissed, and the Arlessa whimpered when she was pushed a little harder against the wall. “We should lock _you_ back up in his place.”

Fuck, even his _ankles_ were bound?

“There, drag him out.” Nathaniel told them, and Hawke performed the labour to get him out into the hall. They gave him water and Velanna’s magic flowed down Connor’s chest and shoulders, his body cradled by Hawke in a way that no one felt the need to question. “Do as much as you can, Velanna, but we need to get _out of here_.”

“I know, I just…” He just looked _horrible_ , yes, Nathaniel felt the same way.

An exchange of Orlesian passed in the cell before with a shriek the Arlessa was pushed down and Genevieve rejoined them, her shield on her back and sword sheathed next to her. She looked down at what was happening and was silent for several long moments, then pulled her helmet off. She’d shaved her hair off before leaving Vigil’s Keep, a sign of focus for the campaign, and now she took a knee next to Connor’s pale, prone form. She took one of his hands and then bent down to touch her lips to Connor’s forehead.

He looked _dead_. Eyes sunken and skin ghostly white, breaths shallow and fast, but his skin burning fiercely. His red hair was tangled and ragged around his head, at least a month’s worth of beard thick down his face and throat and making him look like a completely different person. The Crow said he’d been poisoned, Zevran had called it embrium, and Redcliffe Village felt miles and miles further than ever.

“Rowan?” The Arlessa uttered quietly from within the cell.

“Not my eyes…” What? “You can’t have my eyes…”

“Velanna, we need to move.” Nathaniel urged. “You two carry him, whatever she can cast while walking she will.”

“ _Rowan?_ ” Again, with more fear. Nathaniel turned in the half-light of Velanna’s staff to see what was wrong.

That was when something _terrible_ happened.

* * *

 

“ _Commander!_ ” Soren’s vision was feathered with white along the edges, the taint easing the pain of the arrows as he grasped the quarrel spearing his hand and pulled the bolt free, fingers trembling and blood filling his gauntlet. Mahanon’s armoured hands found him before he could try to heal himself, the Dalish elf’s gauntlets missing their palms to make his own brand of magic easier to cast. “Let me.”

He did, breathing sharp and tight through his teeth as Mahanon’s magic swept down his hand to knit the damaged closed again. It was slow and careful- too slow and _too careful_ with a battle raging around them. Soren’s left arm had an arrow piercing it just below the elbow, the shot sliding down under the metal folds when he’d exposed the underside of his arm to throw the spell. His right was weakened by the shot through his shoulder, but he made it move anyways. He pried the buckle off one of the short leather cases hanging from his belt, reaching inside with clumsy fingers to withdraw a slim vial of processed lyrium.

“Sir, you should withdraw.” Soren brought the bottle to his mouth, bit hard on the cork and wrenched it free with a pop. It was small and he had to brace the neck between two fingers, spitting the cork _at_ the other elf on purpose.

“ _Fuck_ you,” he said, and tipped his head back to drain the bottle. He went _blind_ from the sudden surge of energy, light flooding through his body from crown to toes, the veil hissing against his senses like sheer, worn-out silk. His magic came flooding back to him and he replaced the empty bottle, immediately reaching for the arrow in his left arm and splitting the bare head off with a shock of magic, ripping the shaft back the way it had gone the first time. He sealed the wound and rolled his own flesh back together, clenching his hand several times to make sure the limb would _work_. That was it, just _work._ “Do your job and bring down that door, Lavellan.”

“But sir-”

“ _Do your damned job, mage!”_ This was not the _time_ for careful healing, Lavellan, this was a _battle_!

Soren grasped the arrow piercing his right shoulder, exhaling hard through his teeth before he pulled it out _hard_ because it had to come out _now_ and not _later_. A web of magic that did its job and no more was set to work, just enough to dull the pain and let him lift his staff again so he could fight. Mahanon finally understood what was needed of him when he spoke again.

“You need to straighten out before I can fix the last one; on your back or on your feet?”

“Were you always this stupid?” Soren snapped back, picking his staff off the ground and jamming the blade into the bloodied sand and dirt.

“Are you always this stubborn?” Mahanon asked and Soren reached higher up the iron body to rise.

“ _Yes._ ” He found the other mage taking his arm and swinging it around his own shoulders, helping him rise with the arrow still digging through his body. Standing meant he could be _seen_ as Mahanon grumbled something about recklessness before the debilitating pain in Soren’s gut quickly doubled and the Archmage himself had to close his eyes, biting his lips together and forcing a breath past the urge to vomit from pain. It wasn’t _just_ muscle and simple movement at risk here, it wasn’t as simple as forcing down the pain, it was much _more_ than that.

Mahanon’s lips were moving with a prayer to his goddess Sylaise, a mnemonic to keep his casting steady as Soren braced his weight between his staff and his legs, keeping his back as straight as he could and watching the assault carry on at the doors ahead. The archers had retreated but there was movement behind the boarded windows, the first bolts and arrows aiming down and firing into the hoard using magic, hammers, axes, and shields to beat down the already wedged-open doors.

That was when something _terrible_ happened.

 _“Augh!_ ” The embracing warmth of Mahanon’s magic _burned_ and Soren dropped hard to the ground to get away from the painful surge of misused power. He clapped both hands to his wounded gut, struggling in the dirt to wedge himself up on one elbow, a barking demand caged in his mouth to know what in _Andraste’s name_ Mahanon thought-

“Elgar’nan guide me- _what is this?_ ” Lavellan’s feet stumbled away from where Soren had fallen, both his hands open in front of him and engulfed with radiant light that surged without form and had blown away his spell. He tried to make the magic disperse with another oath to his gods and Soren heard- he felt- oh no…

He felt it in his magic first, in that cold rippling tide of constant power spinning in his chest and pooling constant and clean for his use. He felt that clear liquid oasis begin to swell and deepen, felt it rise until it was dancing under his throat, trying to choke him as his body became too light to wield properly. Duty was sudden and loud in his awareness, shouting warnings that echoed soundlessly in the air. Soren flipped himself, still in pain, and struggled to find his knees with one arm holding him up, looking back the way the army had already come.

From the burnt out gate and the concave walls around it, through the threadbare veil fluttering like an open net in the wind, there came a sudden tension, a keening, suffering feeling. Soren knew this feeling and he knew what was coming, the only thing he didn’t know was what under the Maker’s Sight to do and stop it.

“ _WARDENS!”_ He shouted, but who was going to hear him over the chaos at the doors and over his own panting pain? “ _SOLDIERS!_ ” There was no point.

There was no point in shouting, because the Veil _ripped_ itself wide open with a blast of sound and violent magic, blowing back the air and almost picking Soren off the ground where he bowed his head to stay in place. A black and formless wall of discord and black magic cut across the courtyard, blocking the way back from the keep to the road, the ground collapsed and the sky buckled, light twisting into dissonant panels of green and grey and violet and yellow.

Everything became everywhere and _nothing_ was allowed to stay the same.

The Veil around Redcliffe Castle was sundered.


	37. Wingbeats

In the yellow light of the Fade Connor felt his rotunda shake. The trembles snapped him out of the daze that had swallowed his mind for longer than he could really say. The memory of his summer sunlit room at Vigil’s Keep vanished, the soft weave of his blankets and the fresh scent of his herbs, the chipper noises wafting up from the courtyard. The sweet scent of a life he hadn’t had time to appreciate was ripped from him and Connor stumbled hard, trying to recognize what was happening.

His rotunda had no ceiling, nothing but its arched stone windows that circled the dusty stone floor. The yellow sky was cut with a sheet of darkness that screamed and ripped away through the distance. It surged up and Connor was amazed when the sky up and ahead of him buckled and bloomed with form and colour. Towers and high walls, the Black City itself blossoming from the filthy dreamscape and warping itself in confusing ways. Towering pillars that struck out horizontally, walls that clipped and buckled to form stairs, rolling waves of elastic stone.

The foot of the forming complex slammed right into the front of the rotunda, dream-like shards of black raining from the walls as Connor’s sanctuary fractured and fell out from under him. He screamed and dropped through the air, Kindness wailing after him with its wings beating frantic and fast to keep up.

Was he moving? Was he being taken somewhere far away? No, because his awareness was distorted but not washed away by the screaming winds of the Fade. Something had _happened_ but with a twist of his shoulders and the guiding light of Kindness’ presence Connor was able to tell himself which way to fall and how to move through the filtering abyss.

It was hard to be a Warden but a bird came much easier to him. He’d never really watched how they flew but he mimicked Kindness now: a silvery streak of awareness that pulled the tips of its wings in and wheeled through the air. Connor quickly skated down behind the spirit and broke free of the falling debris. When he wheeled back around he flew through the solid arch of one of the rotunda’s windows, startled but not surprised when he landed on human feet again in the rebuilt expanse of the same room he’d just fled. This one was not shattered, its pieces whole and not the suspended fall of broken debris he could see hovering in the Fade light beyond him. _Over there_ and _over here_ didn’t mean anything; he’d sought someplace safe to land and that just so happened to be the same place he’d just fled.

_The demon has shown itself!_

“I knew there was _something_ ,” Connor breathed, gasping in awe as he gazed up at the distorted body of the complex forming and ripping through the yellow sky above him. He answered Kindness’ announcement with his own question: “Is that castle the demon’s work, or something else?”

_It is far more than one creature of the Fade could possibly be. Something has changed, something terrible has changed._

“Well if the demon is _involved_ then that’s still what I’m here for.” He said, telling himself to try and feel confident. “There’s not much else I can reasonably do, even if it kills me my body won’t be much use to it.” At least Connor hoped not.

There had been two terrible moments where Connor had woken up since seeing Zevran. The first time had been forced by the Talon’s bellowing voice and the scalding burn of hot embrium to keep his heart beating. The second had been Connor surprising himself with Kindness’s help to awaken- but the pain and horror of what he’d found had sent him spiralling back into the Fade to escape it. It would only be a matter of time before Connor wasn’t capable of leaving the Fade again no matter who was on which side of the veil.

The Talon still frightened him, make no mistake, but there was an inevitability creeping up on Connor which dampened that fear. The only other thing the Talon could do to Connor at this point was slit his throat and be done with it, and there was no telling whether or not that decision had already been made anyways.

Connor had, however long ago now, unbarred the door to Rowan’s corridor. She’d come to his rotunda many times over the weeks and Connor had forced her to stay away after being taken to the tower, but there was no tower anymore. His body could still be abused- maybe it already _was_ , but Connor couldn’t feel it anymore. He had no idea if he’d even notice it when he died. So he wasn’t afraid of seeing Rowan again for fear of what the Talon would do because his worst had already been done. All Connor had left to do was wait for death.

He knew this because Rowan had told him there was an army attacking Redcliffe Village. She’d told him in tears that their mother was taking her to Orlais, that they had to leave through a secret tunnel and escape across the Hinterlands to an old fort with horses, and that Connor wasn’t going with them. If his family didn’t need Connor to teach Rowan her magic or he was simply too great a liability to travel with, then that meant he was going to die.

He’d seen her once and only once since being dragged down into the dungeon. She didn’t know where he was and Connor had not told her: she was a child going through too much to handle any more. He hoped she escaped. He didn’t know _why_ , he just _did._

His mother and sister would escape, whoever was bold and crazy enough to attack Redcliffe Castle would either be defeated at the gates or somehow make it through the keep. Connor would not survive a military raid on the castle. The Talon would not defend him if he’d already been abandoned. The most likely death, if he wasn’t simply cut open, was that he’d die of either starvation or embrium withdrawal. His only sanctuary would be the Fade and Kindness’ hold on him keeping him asleep through the pain. He was going to die.

Connor didn’t know what would happen to him after that. The Maker cursed his children with magic and awareness in the realm of dreams, so if Connor died in his sleep then he didn’t know what that would mean if he was already _in_ the Fade but so far away from the Maker’s side. Maybe there wasn’t a Maker after all: maybe he’d just revert to being some Fade echo and eventually survive long enough to become a demon himself. This was not the time to lose his faith, but it was soundly gone. Connor was going to die.

_You are mortal, and your mortal self beyond the veil has not perished._

Kindness made a good attempt at trying to console him, but Connor just shook himself all over and tried to form his armour and the mock-up of his body. With his luck, the demon that devoured him would be Despair.

“It’s only a matter of time,” He grumbled, telling himself to speak because it was true and not because he wanted to frighten himself. “And please try and remember what I said about inside and outside voices, Kindess.”

_I perceive no such difference._

“Right. To the matter then: what’s that sound?” It was… echoing.

_The dreamers._

“Rowan told us there was an army readying an attack on the castle: I doubt anyone is sleeping through that.” Even if the fighting had already come and gone while Connor wasted away here, he’d been in the castle every night for weeks: the Fade didn’t sound like _that_. There was a dissonance, a vibrating wail that screeched and rolled over itself like heavy dough. And besides, the only mages in castle Redcliffe were Rowan and Connor: if he’d ever encountered another dreamer except Carver or Commander Surana’s guardian spirit then he’d certainly never noticed them like this.

 _The demon has captured them, they are frightened_.

“Demons don’t just catch people who aren’t mages.” Connor argued again, but he conjured his staff and he walked. He passed his tables and bookshelves, casting a curious look through the windows of the rotunda because they didn’t seem the same as before. They were shimmering like they were set with glass, a nonsense bit of the Fade because the windows were taller and wider than Connor in every sense: Tevinter arches with pointed tops and wide stone bottoms planted on the floor.

He told the door, the old door, the first door, to open and it did not. He stopped walking, looked at the door again and repeated his command. Again, it didn’t open.

_The demon has captured the dreamers, we escaped and are at the edge of its influence._

“So, it’s on the other side of that door? What about the way back toward the Circle?” Kindness took a moment to answer him, possibly because the spirit itself had to check what was through the libraries Connor had conjured.

_Skyhold and the Circle remain, but your sister’s garden has been devoured._

Son of a bitch.

_There is no way to venture into the garden, it is completely gone._

“Then we go this way.” Connor said, thrusting his hand out at the door. It resisted him _again_. “I _said_ we go _this way!_ ”

_My friend?_

“What!” He threw a handful of lightning, felt the satisfying give and split of the dream resisting but suffering to do so.

_Is this wise?_

“You’re not Wisdom, you’re Kindness.” Connor told the spirit, shouldering his staff and using both hands to twist and form a wreath of red flames that spun down his wrists and surged over the door. “If the demon frightens you then stay here, Kindness, I’ll understand. It’s the safer thing to do and picking a fight with demons isn’t really what I’d call a kind or nice plan of action, but I can’t just sit here. You are as you are as you will always be, but I’m not- and I’m sick of sitting here so _Maker take this damned **door!** ”_

Warmth wrapped and spread down his back, soaking through his shoulders until his pauldron gleamed silverite and black in the yellow light, the supple creases of his gloves hugging his hands comfortably, ten fingers in all, the polished slats of silverite protecting the backs of them. He could see the tassels and stitches of his laced vambraces, his belts saddling his waist with the weight of water skins, medical kit, and rations. His staff didn’t just rest against his back, the obsidian-flecked silverite staff caught on a hook between his shoulders, the bright blue and woven silver of his armour clear and crisp in front of him.

 _I will help_.

“Thank you, my friend.”

He swung his staff hard and broke the door off its hinges, unprepared for how the demon’s domain reacted to his rude violation when the whole world tipped forward. Like contents of a bottle the entire rotunda pitched over, Connor swallowing a shout as he told himself to fall and fly straight through the open door and into the endless black that spread out and caught him like a midnight pond. He passed through a rush of black wind and held his staff tight with both hands, fighting not to flail and scream about in the free-fall. He had to find his feet, put his feet on the _edge_ , and let his heels scrape and push and _dig_ so he could _slide…_ Yes, like this! His elbows caught the same gritty angle and he rode on his back down through the abyss, teeth clenched and panic held down.

As he fell he noticed things. He heard yelling now, clearly human and all of them tumbling over one another. They started off so quiet and grew with their terror and number, shrieking names and the commands of a fierce battle. Some sounded almost familiar to him: men he’d dined with or passed in the Vigil’s yard. He saw the origin of each wail and scream as a button of light in an endless, rolling black. Felt them like the foaming crests of waves in the middle of an angry sea.

_Shh, it has not noticed us yet._

Oh, that was why this got to be so almost-peaceful. What was he supposed to do now? He wanted to fight the demon, yes, but there were so _many_ caught in its thrall- how?

_Something terrible has happened._

Never let it be said that spirits were good at clear, forthright communication.

_I sense that I am being mocked._

“All in good humour, love.” Connor sensed the spirit’s gentle approval as a warmth that touched his cheek.

Then he noticed… something. Not from Kindness, but from the falling coins dancing through the fountain water. The brush of clouds in a dark sky. Connor fell and he listened and he closed his eyes to hear better- still aware of everything just as he had been before, but he focused anyways. A little closer, a little firmer, a little more familiar. Something that was boorish and bored and effortlessly charming. Something that was being chipped at and pulled down and peeled away from the corners and edges.

It wasn’t the only one however. There was thrilling competition and boundless confidence and gentle curiosity and affectionate boasting. And over there: vulgarity that protected intimacy and loyalty that was forged of sheer stubborn dedication. Another one was veracious in the need to be proven and restored, to be respected and remembered, to be more than what the past had dictated or the future had ever planned. Further away, but not too far: the relentless determination to do right, the quiet patience of the right tool for the right job and every task completed end to end, to be honourable and upright and forgiven?

No, no Connor _knew_ these traits. He knew who they belonged to, he knew how they worked with mind and body and form and intention and the people that were mixed and mingled between the senses and words. These were _familiar_. These were intimately, properly _familiar_ to him. Connor _knew_ these traits, because he _knew_ the people they described!

“Anything that can hold this many people at the same time isn’t something I can fight alone.” He reasoned out-loud. “I know too many people here to move on just yet, Kindness. Are you ready?”

_Why that one first?_

“Because I keep butting in on his dreams anyways, and I want to yell at him for getting caught by a demon.” Yell at him, and threaten him with a goose-egg for being here when there was a _battle_ going on and _Maker Take You_ , Carver Hawke, you _idiot_. “Could you please show me how to fly again?”

Kindness moved like a warm wind and Connor followed, leaving the falling slant behind and taking in exchange the wide span of powerful wings. His were slower than the spirit’s, probably because he had to think so much more about them, but he curved through the air and carved a silent path along flutes of wind, circling tight in Kindness’ wake. When he heard the voice and felt the presence he knew he wanted, Connor let his feet come out with talons spread, seizing the light that became a crystal that shattered and became the world.

He hit the ground as a warden again: hands and feet and staff and greaves. His face was planted hard on the flat, debris-strewn ground, the air hot and oppressive against his head and back, reeking with sulphur and old dust and refusing to move, to budge, to even breathe. It was rank and heavy, the world dark and oppressive even with the ceiling so high, the red pillars lining the tunnel thick like the trees of legend. Connor had to struggle and fight for every ounce of movement, from flat on his chest up to one shoulder, to one elbow, to the palms of both hands, and then his _legs_ …

_“I’m sorry, Hawke, we simply cannot afford to let this go on.”_

_“Hawke- Hawke listen to me; I wish there was another way.”_

One Fereldan voice Connor didn’t know, and one voice Connor vaguely remembered from Skyhold. His legs were not cooperating in the dark. The toes of one boot found a groove in the stone, pushed back on it and to make his leg bend and his knee take weight.

“ _A quick death is all we can offer him now. I am truly sorry.”_

A woman’s voice raged and screamed against the apology, there was a lick of fire against the ground and the hollow clatter of wood striking stone. Connor was sweating hard, trying to get his head up. It felt like he weighed two hundred extra pounds, struggling to place one boot under his body and push- anchoring his staff on the ground next to him so he could lean on it like a dying man and haul himself upright.

He was in the Deep Roads, Maker knew where exactly, and there were three- four people only a few meters away down the crumbled passage. They were a ragged bunch, certainly not Wardens with their custom armour: no two pieces of anything were the same, not from the man’s feather-ruffed jacket to the woman’s heavy iron braces. The two were mages, and it was her staff on the ground: a woman with short black hair and a streak of blood across her nose, her skin pale and withered from so long without the sun, her cheeks cut with tears as she opened her mouth and screamed at the tall, ragged blonde mage she was speaking to. Behind them both was a kneeling dwarf in a red coat with a threatening crossbow settled across his back.

None of them had a proper pack he could assume had enough gear for an expedition like this, something terrible must have happened to bring them down here.

“ _I will do it for you, Hawke, I won’t make you bear it.”_

 _“He’s my **brother!** ”_ The woman howled, and when she stormed towards the other mage Connor could see better and realized _why_ he saw Varric Tethras kneeling low in the Deep Roads.

Carver-

 _This is a memory, made different_.

No but it was close enough to the truth- that was Carver! Carver Hawke, blight creasing his eyes and rotting the edges of his mouth, limbs lined with black and too weak to walk. Connor felt the horror bead across his face in the heat, a great wail building in his chest. No, Carver didn’t look like that, Carver was a Grey Warden and Blight didn’t take them like that- only Velanna, but she’d spent _years_ in the roads and- and _no_. Not Carver, no, Connor didn’t know why the Fade was doing this or what the demon wanted to accomplish, but _no_. Carver couldn’t look like _that_.

“ _There are no Grey Wardens here, Hawke, I was wrong.”_ The blonde mage urged again, his presence so _strong_ here that Connor almost mistook him for real: almost forgot that this was the _Fade_. If anyone here was the demon controlling the dream then it had to be _that one_. “I will do this.” The mage held his staff until he just stopped, and in its place was- was that a knife!? _No!_

“I am a Grey Warden!” Connor heard his voice leap without thinking, interrupting because how could he _not?_ He wanted to speak more than he wanted to watch and that was all the Fade needed to make a mess of things. No one was going _near_ Carver with that knife! “That man can be saved!”

“There are no Grey Wardens here!” The blonde mage shouted back, realizing he was there. The mage wore scruff ragged and thin down his cheeks and narrow chin. His face rippled briefly before returning to its sharp and obvious form again. “An Awakened Darkspawn, is that it? My friends, ready yourselves for battle!”

“You will not defeat me: I am a Grey Warden!” Connor repeated boldly, but briefly there was the horror of his rotted flesh, his pockmarked armour, his rows and rows of bloody teeth. He rejected them: no! He was a human mage and a Grey Warden, tall and strong and healthy, trained for the Deep Roads and ready to beat down the Blight in whatever form it chose! His armour was _blue_ his hair was _red_ his hands were _whole_ those were not his _teeth_ and that demon would _stay away from Carver Hawke!_

Kindness was there to echo his sentiments, telling the Fade that no: he was not a Darkspawn. No, he was not the walking dead. No, he was not hunched and bleeding and dripping with rot and sin. Connor was a Grey Warden and he was here, and no one would spike Carver Hawke on a blunt knife so long as he drew breath!

“ _I_ am the Grey Warden here!” The blonde mage shouted, something demonic surging through his throat and coating his words in oil. His eyes shone blue, his body riddled with it like a stone flawed and ready to burst. “And _you_ are nothing! _You_ do not belong here!”

“Anders, flank the demon!” Ander-!? The woman, Champion Hawke, was shouting again, her staff reclaimed and already held behind her as she sprinted. “Rain hell, Varric!” Maker Take Him, Connor should have thought this through a little better!

Connor _did_ have something to fight with that that was the simple fact that Varric Tethras was not really here. Meaning his bolts did not _exist_. They did _not_ strike Connor and they did _not_ make any marks on the stone around him. In fact, Varric Tethras was so _insubstantial_ and _insignificant_ in the demon’s prison and in Hawke’s frightening memory that Connor simply _refused_ to have him remain present! Connor’s dismissal took the form of a gout of white fire he didn’t even feel himself cast, and the false face of Varric Tethras burned away to nothing but ash and memory.

Champion Hawke was more believable, no doubt because if Carver was going to remember anyone from his first horrific experience in the deep roads then it was going to be his sister. He didn’t want to fight her even if it was just an illusion because it didn’t matter how lucid Carver _looked_ , this dream was meant for him and he would be aware of _everything_ that happened. He did not want to fight Carver’s sister, but letting her kill him wouldn’t do any good either!

Connor felt her staff swing and bash against his guard, his haft striking for her hands but missing. One of his ankles suffered a painful twist when it was locked in ice that didn’t break when he kicked at it. He thrust the head of his staff to his other side and caught _Anders_ in the shoulder, his lightning too late to do real damage before he flipped the weapon the other way around and hurled the spell at the Champion instead.

She screamed and it was a _horrible_ sound, enough to break his focus because there was _so much_ in that one throaty cry. There was the moment their father died, the pain of Bethany’s death, the grief and rage of a year’s slavery, the countless stupid, unnecessary quarrels between little brother and older sister that had poisoned years and Carver regretted _all_ of it and-

Anders’ staff slammed so hard into his ribs that Connor’s frozen foot broke loose and he fell hard to the ground.

_“Kindness!”_

A wreath of blue light surged across the ground and Connor felt it pull on him like Issan’s reigns in his hands: demanding if not his effort then at least his attention. Anders reeled back but the Champion lunged with her staff’s bladed end pointed to skewer him, but Connor could move and he rolled away. He found one knee and thrust his arms back and wide, chest open and an explosion of lightning shocked and fired out from him, catching the weapon, her iron braces, her chest-piece, her belt buckle. Everything that was metal he heated and struck down with lightning, and with a horrible gasp Connor cast fire over her injured body and the Champion became nothing but a shadow in the horrifying dream.

Word said the Champion of Kirkwall had put Anders the Apostate to the knife after the death of Grand Cleric Elthina. Rumour had it Carver Hawke didn’t remember the day well enough to rule on the subject. If Anders the runaway Warden and Commander Surana’s unanswered regret had been the reason Carver had survived the Deep Roads and found his way to the Wardens… then Connor was quite alright to look again and see a demon with twisted horns and long black claws instead of what had been a very believable human face.

The problem was that he looked and then immediately took a hard blow straight across his face, blood welling in his mouth and down his nose, pain spinning through his head. The next blow took Connor off the ground and he flipped through the air, landing hard again with a cry and twisting to his feet with far less grace than before. This was the Fade, he didn’t have to gesture to conjure the glyph of white, blue, and gold that cut across the floor between them, and by telling his face to heal, it was healed. By telling his ribs to heal, they were healed. His will was stronger and the demon did not advance across his glyphs, well aware of the trap and set to roar and rage at him from several feet back.

“You won’t have him! _”_ He shouted, conjuring his staff to brace himself with, and when the demon came no closer Connor let himself grow angry at it. A bolt off his staff didn’t convince it to come closer, nor did the series of strikes from the same crystal. The demon retreated, it roared, and it scuttled back a few more feet.

“ _Piss off then!_ ” He yelled, lancing an arm of violet lightning off his shoulder and out down his fingers. He blew off one of its limbs and then the Fade convulsed, the creature fled, and the dream was left feeling very quiet. Why had it run?

_The demon will know we are here now…_

“So I should _not_ have let it get away?” Connor asked, an arm around his rib where he remembered pain but had already told it to go away. He was breathing deep because it felt right to do so, aching from the fight and relieved to have it over and done with. He’d fought demons in the Fade before but _that one.._. Agh, Maker, it was just a _little one_ too…

_I am Kindness, not Foresight._

“Thank you for that,” he grunted.

_All in good humour, friend._

Connor shouldered his staff and hurried across the broken stones towards Carver, who had not moved and had not reacted at all to the fighting. Seeing him so shocked and weak was unsettling and Connor moved all the more urgently, calling his name softly.

Carver looked vile and worn down. He was trembling on his hands and knees with corpse-like yellow skin and sunken features, head bowed and staring at the ground with glassy eyes. He was suffering to breathe and Connor came down gently on one knee in front of him. He was apprehensive because this was bold of him, and this would probably not be the right thing to do, but Andraste Guide Him Connor had been through quite a bit at this point. Seeing Carver in this state was worse than the idea of just leaving him floating uninterrupted in the nightmare, and Connor had to make it right somehow.

So yes, he knelt and he took Carver’s head against the curve of his shoulder, hand behind his head and dragging gentle through his thick black hair, and Connor hugged him as well and as close as he possibly could. He twisted one arm down under Carver’s and around his side, trying to drag him closer, to help him wake up.

“This isn’t how it happened,” Connor told him, urgent and worried when there was no immediate change. Carver’s breaths were still ragged, but then he dragged himself a bit closer. He recognized that he was being held and came creeping into the embrace, Connor’s hands guiding and caring for him, his face turning down to the side of his head, behind his ear while he kept his face down on Connor’s shoulder. “Carver, wake up. This nightmare is over.”

“ _Connor…?_ ” Thank Andraste he could _speak_ , he was lucid. He was coming back.

“I know, I know: we have to stop meeting like this.” Connor joked, trying so hard to get his arms around Carver properly.

“What happened…?”

“Here? I don’t know,” He explained in a relieved hush. “You never told me how exactly you went from Kirkwall to Ostwick. Well, you opened the topic up but I was a bit of a brat on the Inquisitor’s Way and I didn’t take you up on it.”

“I caught the blight…” Carver gasped, the collar of Connor’s armour separating them as the other Warden continued to lean heavy on him, his eyes closed now, lips blighted and breathless. “Anders… he knew where Wardens usually patrolled… we’d been following the maps for weeks trying to get out… Stroud found us… took me to… to Ostwick.”

“And then a few years later he took you south to Amaranthine,” Connor supplied, smiling despite having many, many reasons not to do so. “And you made an ass of yourself when the Hero of Ferelden shot you into a horse-trough.”

Carver laughed, it was hoarse and rough and sounded painful, but it was worth it. His hair was filthy in this dream and Connor dragged his fingers through it, telling the Fade to cleanse the filth and relieved when the dream answered.

“And… and you were in the Fereldan Circle…” Carver thought out-loud, his hand gripping the griffon wing on Connor’s shoulder. Connor touched his back and the old blood and sweat melted away, the grime worked free from the hardy leather of his armour. “You weren’t here… How are you…? Is this the _fucking_ Fade again, Connor?”

“Yes, Hawke, you’re in the fucking Fade again.”

“Why… can’t I move?”

“Because the dream is telling you you’ve got the blight still…” Connor pushed them apart, not too far, but he made Carver sit on his own folded legs even if he needed to brace himself on Connor’s just to stay upright. His hands were firm and talented with wood and tools, he would be well again soon and his arms would feel strong in no time at all. Connor reached up with both hands to hold his exhausted face, to brush his fingers through Carver’s black hair. He hardly needed his magic to come and spread light with a cool, refreshing tingle through his bruised skin. He looked so tired, believing the dream when it told him he should feel ragged and hurt, but he kept his attention all on Connor. When he spoke, Carver listened.

“But you don’t have the blight, Carver Hawke.” Connor told him kindly, confidently. “And you’re not sick and weak like this.” He pulled his thumb across Carver’s bowed lips, watching his eyes slide shut so he could brush those too. “And you’re not meek and quiet like this.” With more force now, hands walking down his neck, across his strong shoulders. “And no one is going to threaten to stick you on a knife, and no _demon_ is going to keep hold of you like this.” To his hands, his skilled hands with their callouses and scars that Connor held tightly to. “Because you are a Grey Warden, Carver, and I…” He stopped. It was better that he stop there.

Carver believed him without reservation and the blight marks on his hands and forearms were fading, his blue eyes were clearing up. His mouth was healed, his form alert and ready to move in the fading dream. He was ready but he was watching Connor, tracking him very closely with those lovely eyes of his, and he…

“Finish that sentence,” Carver murmured, his voice slurred and soft. “Connor, I remember how I got here now and I want you to finish before we go.”

“Why aren’t you waking up yet?” Connor stammered instead, he’d talked himself into a rotten place. “You always wake up when you realize-”

“Warden Guerrin you will finish your sentence.” No!

“Warden Hawke I will not.” He rebuked, because- _because- “_ I’m not going to make it out of this alive, Carver and I won’t go ahead and-” Carver signed _please_.

Connor shut his eyes, pain rolling through him. He shouldn’t have mentioned dying, he shouldn’t have let himself start to say why Carver wasn’t going to stay here in this dream… Carver’s hands were holding his and he was waiting, watching, maybe even feeling through to Fade to hear why Connor didn’t want to speak. It was hard not to just… lean in to him and…

“You won’t stay here, Carver because you’re a better Grey Warden and I… _love_ you…” He let the words click together and… he couldn’t look at him right now Connor _couldn’t_ … “And I’m sorry, and I…” He heard the soft creak of metal armour reforming in the fade and he felt Carver’s lips press warm and firm to his forehead. When he let himself be aware of Carver again the other Warden had regained his armour, his sword and helmet on the floor next to them. “I love you.” He repeated.

Carver had lifted himself on his knees to kiss his forehead and Connor closed his eyes again wishing he remembered the particular fold and tug of his smell. Not the lavender Connor joked about or the mint he slipped into things to keep Carver in mind, but the actual smell of him, like the morning after the demon attack at the Vigil, like that hard night in Amaranthine after Connor had found Jylan. He couldn’t remember it but he wished he did because when Carver slipped down to eye-level with him again Connor wanted to know what he smelled like when he tilted his face a breath closer and touched his lips chastely to Carver’s.

Fool’s heart. He dropped the kiss and his shameful little hope that there was a point beyond pain in admitting something like this _now_. He was going to die here and yet he let himself say something so harsh out-loud for Carver to hear? Had this not been the Fade Connor’s eyes would have flooded with tears, but here he had more control. He didn’t cry, he just hated himself. He hated how badly he wanted to reach for and kiss back when Carver dipped his face and pressed his lips simple and firm to Connor’s cheek.

They were kneeling in a demon’s dream lair and Connor just wanted to _kiss him_. He was going to get them _both_ killed at this rate.

“We should go,” Connor said, because Carver hadn’t said anything yet to answer his poorly timed-

“You know,” Carver interrupted, and he didn’t move either. “If you’re in love with me then that means I can tell you I’ve been sleeping with your lover since the start of autumn.” Connor just sort of… fucking… _what?_

“How and _why_ would you jump to that?” Connor asked. Carver, _really?_ “And… I don’t know how long it’s been since I was captured but autumn that- actually that means I’ve been kissing _your_ lover since the start of _winter_.” He reached up with both hands to cover his face, rubbing his eyes of the foolish subject. “But we both knew these things; we just didn’t get a chance to talk about it…”

“Because _someone_ has a shitty family.” Carver chimed, “And you didn’t _know_. I just told you”

“Carver, I share walls with both of you: I found out before the servants did.” He watched Carver curl his lips into his own mouth with a very appropriate look of _‘oh’_ , and Connor shook his head again at the strange talk. “Why are we discussing this _now?_ You just said you remember-”

“We’re discussing this now because the asshole with the shitty family; that being _you_ , just said he’s going to _die_. I’m putting off the moment when I have to call bullshit on that.”

“ _Carver_ -”

“What I remember is this:” Carver ignored him and carried on. “We found you, we killed _everyone_ around you except your mother and sister who we were honestly content to just leave in your cell after we dragged you out of it. Someone was talking and then suddenly I was here in the Deep Roads. You say this is the Fade, Connor, so why haven’t I woken up?”

“Because there’s a powerful demon controlling this part of the Fade.” Connor felt the alarm and then the sudden anger flare up in the other Warden and scoffed at it. “Calm down! I’ve been _outside_ its domain all this time. Just- stop that. I knew it was _coming_ I just don’t know what made it strike out and grab so many people, who else did you come with? Whose army is attacking Redcliffe?”

“Ours.” Carver said bluntly. “Amaranthine and South Reach declared war on Redcliffe.” _What?_ “You were just the start of it, your _father_ -”

“Later,” Connor grumbled, and when Carver tried to- “I said later! We don’t have time, the longer I go without embium the more likely it is that I won’t wake up again. How’s _that_ for ignoring the matter?”

“Maker-”

“Who else did you come with?”

“Evie- _shit!_ Evie!” They got up, Hawke bringing his sword and helmet with him as they climbed clumsily to their feet. “Nathaniel and Velanna too, she was trying to help you when it all went tits up. And Surana might be here, he was leading the army against the gates.”

“Then the Commander is probably almost done fixing everything while we were…” Oh, _wait_. “Kindness!”

“What?”

_Yes?_

“Kindness, can you find _Duty?”_ Connor asked, the warmth fluttering through the dreamscape as it lost form. The red light of the magma channels had already faded, the walls melding into darkness. The lesser demon had fled and Carver had no reason to believe he was still in the Deep Roads. The dream fell apart and left them surrounded in nothing, glittering lights and moaning voices entering their awareness again. “Kindness, find the Commander and Duty, tell them I’ve found Warden Hawke and will try and free the other Wardens.”

_Duty will have much to say on that matter, I will do as you have asked._

“Who the shit are you talking to?” Carver asked, whirling several times in the eerie half-light.

“Kindness?” Connor asked again, and felt Kindness’ attention come back to him. He looked at Hawke, who was at a loss for all this dream-realm nonsense and signed a cuss at him for talking into the night. “Show Warden Hawke you mean no harm.” He felt Kindness _giggle?_

“I’ve been here ten fucking minutes and this Fade _bullshit_ is already-” They both jumped when a curtain of pale, shimmering pink light twisted out through Connor’s armour and extended itself as arms and legs and hair like Connor’s and a staff like Connor’s and clothes like Connor’s and a face and hands and smile that-

“ _Hey!_ ” No that- wait! Why did it look like _Connor!?_

Kindness twisted its hands around Carver’s face and weightlessly pulled itself up with an eager smile, pressing itself into a kiss that shocked Carver to silence. It stroked his hair and twisted to rub itself against him, heedless of the armour in its way and Connor _knew_ the spirit felt warm and _Hesserian’s **ass** _ that wasn’t what he’d meant! Kindness vanished in a delighted shimmer and was gone, choosing to exit _through_ Carver and leave the thoroughly violated Warden standing there staring at Connor, who should not have been able to blush in the Fade but he knew he was _scarlet._

“I-” He gagged, humiliated. “I didn’t think it would-”

“That _thing_ ,” Carver hissed, “Just stuck its _tongue in my mouth!_ ”

“ _I’m so sorry-_ ”

“It doesn’t even _have_ a tongue and you let it just _fucking-!?”_

“I’m sorry!”

“I’ve gone further with your fucking spirit than I have with you! _I hate the Fade!_ ”

“Carver-”

“Find Evie so we can get out of here and I can kick your ass!” O… okay…

They would, uh, they would do that, then. That was- that was a much more productive way to um, to not, address Carver’s chief complaint. Connor would go do that.

He would do that right now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk why I thought he’d rescue all the wardens in one chapter but WELCOME TO THE THIRD ACT.


	38. Fractures in the Grey

 

“You know what you _can_ tell me,” Connor announced in the Fade, navigating the eerie darkness of a vast space filled with falling stars. “What happened to the Commander’s son?”

“Young master Kieran?” Carver asked him, the other Warden following Connor closely. The darkness was not quiet as they moved, screams and shouts warbling through the dream. Carver’s silverite armour reflected back the light of the burning minds suspended around them, the warrior placing his feet carefully in the mage’s foot-prints as they travelled the wailing prison. “It’s all a bit jumbled together, and is that really more important than you explaining where the fuck we are?”

“We’re in the Fade,” his answer was simple and easily given. “In a demon’s realm, and all these lights are the people it’s captured.”

“That’s fucking creepy. I hate the Fade.” Connor laughed at his miserable attitude. 

“What happened to the boy?”

“The same Crow house that abducted you broke into Vigil’s Keep and stole him away,” Carver explained. “The days are muddled but the morning you were taken the rest of us scoured Denerim. We took off down the Imperial Highway when we realized your mother had fled the city. By nightfall we-”

“I didn’t ask about me,” Connor interrupted, stopping by one burning light and listening closely, then passing by. That person needed help too, but they didn’t have the luxury of beating down every single demon while Connor was working on borrowed time. “I asked about master Kieran.” Hawke muttering irritably as they moved on, but came around with an explanation:

“By the time we made it back to Vigil’s Keep hoping Surana had heard our summons and come south from Highever, the whole fortress was locked up and the Commander had nearly lost his mind from fright and anger.” Carver explained but he was short about it, his annoyance quietly grumbling in the dark. “Best guess was your family either wanted him too scared to make a peep from the Vigil and pray for a ransom note, or they’d wind him so far up he’d go wildly off the deep end and burn his own Arling to the ground.”

“Both of those are very hard to imagine.”

“It was harder to watch him almost do the second one, trust me.” Carver grunted. “We only found out where the boy probably was yesterday, but thankfully it was confirmed today when we caught Ser Perth. Kieran should be safe by now.”

“I’m glad for that, but if he wasn’t in the castle then why is Surana attacking Redcliffe?”

“Because no offense to you but _fuck_ House Guerrin.” Carver huffed behind him, and Connor could feel himself being stared at hard and intently by the other Warden. Finally, the question came: “What did they do to you?”

“I think we’re getting closer,” Connor deflected, pushing ahead between the hovering stars.

“Connor.”

“This one, Hawke.” Yes, this one. By sight it was indistinguishable from the dozens of others they’d already passed, but by spirit... “Evie’s in this one, are you ready?”

“You’re going to answer me when we’re done getting her out,” the other Warden grumbled, but he had his sword drawn and helmet closed over his face. “It’ll be two against one and she knows all your weaknesses.”

“Haha, very funny. Ready?” Hawke nodded.

Connor smashed the hovering white flame with his staff and then he was falling, streaking through the air and tumbling as a fierce winter cold came slicing through his mind. Everything was white and grey and _moving_ , the Fade crackling like thin ice and pulling itself together to paint a picture of snow and barren trees, the copper burn of blood was thick in the freezing mounds of sharp snow.

He felt Carver land hard with a stubborn groan in the deep snow, but Connor remembered what Kindness had shown him again and again and pulled himself out through the swirling wind. He fanned his wings and straightened his back, pulling into a steep dive that saved him from the frozen ground and wheeling quickly between the branches of the forming trees. Clumsy but unharmed he grasped one of the branches, knocking the memory of snow down under him and folding his wings as carefully as he could reason.

“ _Connor-!”_ He heard Hawke grunt down in the snow, the Warden picking himself up with ribbons of steam rushing from his helmet. He kept his voice low and tried to call out for him, searching low across the drifting snow. “ _Connor, where the fuck are you?”_

This was the Fade, even if it looked like a snowy forest it was the Fade and that meant Connor didn’t have to use his voice to answer. He just had to focus on the question. Where was he? Up a tree. Why was he up there? Look at him and find out.

“ _Since **when** -!?”_ A shocked hiss.

Since getting stuck in this place for too long, Carver! Put that snow down!

“ _Where’s Evie!?”_

Just for that snowball Connor wasn’t going to _tell him_.

“ _Fight me, buzzard!_ ”

Focus! This was not what they were-

Both of them stopped when they heard metal clash and scrape. Carver’s hand directed him to scout and Connor’s wings were already spread so he could drop and sweep into the air. He had to duck and twist to free himself of the canopy, remembering too late that he could just _tell_ the trees to go away, but manipulating the environment on top of his own form would push his limits too far.

Over the next hill with Carver sloughing through the knee-deep snow trying to follow. Connor thought they looked like wolves, then he realized some of them _were_ wolves and there was a toppled over wagon half-buried in the deep white and slush. There were wolves and there were men in black leathers and armour, all with swords and daggers, facing one woman who-

_Where was her armour!?_

Evie’s sword was blunt and chipped, soft gloves and shoes with a pale green dress of warm Orlesian wool cut and bloody down the skirt. She was holding the blade with both hands and awkwardly, the only shield within reach was half-under the body of a dead man whose green tunic and cream-coloured trousers matched the embroidery dancing across her bodice. When Evie tried to get the dead man’s shield one of the wolves lunged with jaws snapping for her hand. She escaped but one of the highway men had his sword ready to go for her back, and Connor- Connor _dove_. _Stay away!_

Carver’s horn blasted hard to distract the raiders and Connor’s talons found soft eyes and the inner lip of the sockets to curl, grab, and rip across, scattering ash across the snow. The memory of the blood was rancid and burned him so he let the transformation die, hitting the slushy ground with a great splash and tucking through a roll. His staff came up and slammed the knee of another man near him, and he put a blade on the end of the rod so when he connected a second blow with the haft it speared like a pick-axe through the shadow’s chest.

He forced his enemy to vanish with that thought and was on his feet, casting his hand out to where Evie was staggering from the pain of her nightmare. Healing light surged from her feet and coiled up her bleeding body, finding the rips in her skin, the blood spilling from her gut, the exhausted screams weeping from her open mouth.

“ _Fight me you cowards!”_ A wolf yowled painfully before falling to ash around Carver’s sword. He swept the long blade up and hacked deep into a human body, his hand grabbing the man’s armour and throwing him to the ground off the sword. His helmet struck the next one square in the middle of his face, blood spitting across the silverite before he brought the sword down again with another bone-breaking strike.

“My husband-” Evie finally gasped, her wounds closed but the nightmare still spinning and circling. “Jacques- _get up!”_ She stumbled and fell in her dress, but she was close enough to pry at the dead man in the snow, forcing his long chevalier’s shield free from his weight. “ _Jacques!”_

Connor struck lightning through the wolf that leapt at him, but another human just pulled himself out of the snow. Connor’s will wasn’t enough to send him back to the abyss, so the pick-axe had to come around and convince him to _leave_. Where was the demon?

“Hawke!” He shouted, trying to follow what was happening with white light gathering in his clenched hand.

“ _Get her out of here!”_ So Carver wasn’t injured, that was enough. Connor cast his glyph down around her frozen feet, liquid white marks that took the wolf rushing her and ripped its feet back so hard the beast flipped onto its back and was run through by her lunging stab. Evie had the shield across her arm and flinched behind it with a cry when one of the dream raiders slammed his sword down, the guard faltering and letting the sword’s edge cut down across the back of her shoulder. Lightning cracked off Connor’s fingers, splitting into two bands that spared Evie before pinching back together and rupturing the illusion.

“Evie!” Where was the damn _demon?_

“You’re not Commander Clarel-” Connor drew on the memory of sweet dry wine and warm summer starlight and calmly told her shoulder to mend and the pain to fade. Her hair was longer than he’d seen it before, thick knotty lengths wrangled into a braid that swung down her back, repeatedly pulling into her way. The deep snow and water fought against her stride, the Fade resisting when Connor tried to even the terrain for them, causing a fatiguing pain between his eyes. “Where is she?”

“She’s dead and you’re in Redcliffe,” He answered sharply, shock crossing her face and lighting her eyes up wildly, “This fighting won’t end until the demon shows itself, Evie, where is it?”

“How _dare_ you-”

 _“_ Warden Bouclier, remember how you came to be here!” A wolf’s sharp growl warned him before lethal anger barrelled into Connor from behind and took him down. The shade’s teeth ripped and chewed down through his armoured shoulder and its weight smashed him into the ground. He could only will his armour to hold against the assault, physically getting away was too much and he felt his focus breaking up. This was the Fade but those teeth _hurt._

A massive crack split the road and groaned like thin ice, Carver’s alarm echoing sharply as he ignored the far distance and reached the fallen wagon in too few strides. He grabbed Evie’s arm and tore her away from the wide black gouges cutting the nightmare, the Fade transforming faster than Connor could keep track of. He kept the ground under Carver and Evie solid as the two Wardens cut away to climb atop the fallen wagon, water gurgling up at Connor’s face as the wolf vanished as fuel for the expanding illusion. The demon guarding this place told him in no uncertain terms that his shoulder was bruised and ripped from the assault, his armour be damned.

“ _Connor!_ ” The dead chevalier’s brittle hand burst from the black crack and grabbed the collar of Connor’s tunic. Inhuman strength dragged him straight down through the broken ice, deep into the suffocating cold of a frozen lake. It was blue and black and colder than the embrium, swallowing him whole and invading his armour.

_I have found Duty- oh._

He was a little busy, Kindness! _Protect them!_

_But my friend-_

Protect _them!_

The demon told him he was drowning. It told him its hands found his throat and they squeezed and the air came slipping past his lips in silver bubbles, his lungs crushed by the weight of the water and the cold. It told him his armour was too heavy, his staff too clumsy, his shoulder weak and bleeding from its black bruises. Its liquid black eyes breathed despair and its fingers crushed and squeezed and scared him. His chest was sore and brittle and burning and emptying and he was going to drown and die and suffer an endless nightmare of-

Connor told the demon that his strongest spells were lightning and that they were under water. He grabbed its wrists, spun his mind through his silverite and the freezing water, and exhaled a dying breath of sky-splitting hell through its body. If he was going to die then it was not going to live and the demon believed enough of that statement to fail against the rest of what he conjured to destroy it.

He hit a cold stone floor drenched in water, hacking bubbles and ice past his lips because everything felt _painful_ and _real_.

Connor was down on his side, twisted on the ground with his staff nearby and Kindness’ soft presence sinking through his armour and expelling the water as he coughed again, shaking hard from the cold. Maker, it reminded him of the embrium, a horrible thought that frightened him badly enough to undermine him when he tried to make the shaking _stop_. His ears were ringing hard before he realized he could hear yelling again, the faint and twisted chords of trapped minds in a black hallway. He was in a corridor of stone with quiet torches and stones that glimmered with the promise of more fear crystalized in each glittering block.

“Connor!” Correction: _they_ were in that corridor. He found his weak way to his knees, willing to take help from the hands that grabbed him by both arms and helped him to his feet. He knew he cried out from his wounded shoulder, but he found his feet first and Kindness was already weaving through the bruises and tears in his skin. The spirit moved to correct and manage the damage that was not real because this was the Fade and Connor was just a thought and a conscious mind, not a real body with real muscles or tendons or- _or…_

“You’re alive!” _Evie…_ “You’re _here-”_ From a sudden hug she moved for his lips and _kissed_ him. She cupped the back of his head and then used both hands to hold him and kiss him and he wanted to know what it _felt like_ but was swept up in the tide of what it _meant_ instead. The shuddering fear and the calm spread of relief and the hunger for intimacy tempered by the breathless want to be _kind_ and be _gentle_ and ease him and sooth him and touch him and-

Connor was walked back against the wall and answered her. He’d missed her, he’d missed her, he’d not been able to find her in the Fade before and Connor regretted that but even if he never saw her again he was with her _now_ and-

“What-?” No- no don’t stop kissing him, he- “What do you mean _never see you again?_ ” She’d found her armour like Hawke and her braid was gone- had she shaved her head? It looked fine but what about her lovely hair that she-? “Connor, _focus._ Why did you say that?”

“I didn’t say anything-”

“I _felt_ it.” She scolded, and in the darkness he could see her so clearly and well that it didn’t really make sense, but it didn’t have to. Was that Carver he was feeling just a step or two away from them? He suddenly felt so-

“I’m not jealous,” Carver said hotly, and Connor felt his embarrassment come back because he had just been _pushed against a wall and_ \- “Shut up, Connor!”

“I didn’t _say_ anything!”

“Hawke, why did I hear that? Or not hear it- whatever!” Her words sounded a little odd to him but Connor wasn’t sure why. What he did know was that Carver went from being moody to looking put on the spot, attention split between the two of them with dread mingling with anxiety. “One of you answer me! Where are we?”

They were in the Fade and Connor let Hawke explain it to her. When Evie kept coming around again and again at the stubborn point of Connor’s regret, he finally gave a tug where she was holding his hand. She looked at him and he kissed her, an apology and the reason for it tucked between the warm sensation of care and affection.

“No,” she mumbled against him, turbulent fears rolling in her chest. “Velanna was helping you, she-” _Shh…_ He brushed his thumb across her cheek and touched her lips with his again, and then that was enough.

“We need to go.” He urged, and Evie nodded despite the pain of it.

“When we get out of here,” Carver grumbled, letting his helmet close around his face again and shouldering his way over to stand close beside both Connor and Evie. He was sour all over and Connor could read the reason in the frustration reinforcing his silverite armour, his pettiness making his hands clench over and over again, a distinct resonance of self-doubt ringing unpleasantly between tones of blame. “I’m going to make up that difference you just dug up, Bouclier.”

“What difference?” She asked him, then looked at Connor and he felt her curiosity rise, a playful feeling fluttering across his lips when she thought of kissing him again. “Surely you were not shy with him.”

“Excuse me?” Connor asked, but he was drowned out by the spike and rumble of Carver’s immediate embarrassment.

“Shut up, we need to find Nathaniel.”

“Are you serious?” Evie quipped, and she still sounded a little- “You found him first! We agreed-”

“Connor, go find Howe.” Carver did a bad job of pretending Evie wasn’t there, and Connor did an even worse job pretending he understood why Evie knocked her fist into the other Warden’s shoulder.

“You shy little boy! _One from me, one from you, and one from me again_ , you boasted!”

“ _What_ are you two talking about?” Connor complained again, “I need you to focus!  Borrowed time, remember?”

“Did you not kiss him at _all?_ ” Evie dug again and Carver shrieked her name to make her stop. Maker’s _Breath_.

“Listen to me!” Connor remembered his staff and he lifted it, banging the haft soundly on the floor and causing both warriors to suddenly lift off the ground and float weightlessly. Evie shrieked at the change and her heavier shoulder guards began to make her tip backwards, Carver floating next to her and kicking his legs trying to find the floor, arms swinging wildly when his head started leaning sideways. “The Fade is a mess and I _know_ it’s hard to focus and not just say whatever pops into your heads, but we don’t have time for this! If I have to leave you both here then I’ll do it, I honestly will, because as awful as your nightmares were everyone else is still trapped in theirs’! Are you going to help me or not?”

“Connor, put me down!” He finally figured out why Genevieve sounded strange: she wasn’t translating into Trade, she was thinking in Orlesian and the Fade was automatically folding the sentiments into something Connor and Carver could understand. They probably had perfect pronunciation in Orlesian when she heard them too. Too bad that didn’t help any of them when Connor dropped both Warriors and let their own familiarity with their armour cause them to bang and clatter against the stones together.

“Yes, the answer is fucking yes.” Carver grumbled sourly, picking himself off his back with a heaving twist and reach with both arms, his breastplate and pauldrons making that something of a feat. “We’ll help. But Maker it’s like wrestling with smoke just trying to walk forward.”

“I know,” Connor admitted. “I’ve had a bit too much practice lately to go acting like it should be easy for everyone… But, _please_ -”

“So it’s not just a Mage thing?” Evie asked, head bowed and hands on her knees trying to orient herself properly in the dark passage way.

“A little, but it’s more a ‘ _they’ve been keeping me asleep’_ thing.” He regretted saying that before he finished the words, but let them flow anyways without recapturing them. When they both looked at him the horror wasn’t as muted or hidden as they may have wanted. “That’s what embrium does. It keeps you warm and asleep, and if I was in the Fade then I couldn’t use my magic against the Crows.”

“Explaining how they managed to get you all the way to Redcliffe without you blowing the carriage to pieces…” Carver murmured. When he and Evie seemed okay to start walking again, Connor chose a direction at random and led them around and through the winding stone passage ways that had formed from the star-studded murk. Carver and Evie didn’t have to follow his exact footsteps this time, the floor was dark but distinct. “But they didn’t just keep you asleep _all the time_ , I mean, Wardens get stir-crazy just being on a boat or a wagon for too long.”

Connor didn’t answer. He quickly trotted down the passage way instead and paused to regard the glittering stone prisons they passed. Not this one, it was Knight of Redcliffe. Not that one, it was Surana’s standard-bearer. The one over here sounded like Captain Renth of the Silver Order!

“Isn’t embrium addictive?” Evie asked him, and when he didn’t respond she continued with: “Don’t Grey Wardens need to drink _more_ of it than normal to feel the same effect?” Connor stubbornly remembered that he needed Grey Wardens, or at least the other mages like- ah!

“I’ve found Velanna.”

“Connor, answer us.” Carver’s hurt feelings made Connor pause, his gloved hand curling away from the shimmering starfire echoing with Madame Howe’s frightened thoughts. He looked back at the two Wardens with him and gave a single clear reminder:

“You need to _focus_.” And then he quashed the flame in his hand, fingers breaking down the prison’s fragile walls and blowing white light across the three of them.

 _“I know what you are!”_ Connor landed harder than he wanted to on the black ground, the rank stink of dead flesh and old blood clouding his face before he hacked in disgust and rose from his knees. Acrid black smoke was blanketing the air, the ceiling claustrophobic and low, fingers of sharp stone hanging dangerously close to his face. “ _Fear demon! Nightmare! You cannot fool me!_ ”

Connor had to duck and run to reach a wider space in the close cave where the fight was already rumbling boldly. He was surprised but didn’t question when he saw Mistress Howe in Grey Warden armour, her blue tunic snapping around her knees as she twirled a rod of white Dalish heartwood, firing bolt after frigid bolt off the weapon. She was scared but she was also _angry_ and one emotion helped carry her through the other. Her white hair was stubbornly held in a braid behind her head, curled black ears straight and long, blood-writing clear and distinct on her face as she let her anger flow and her focus sharpen on the beast in front of her.

Whatever it was supposed to be wore a tall headdress that crawled down its mutilated face, a long crimson robe dirtied from skulking around in these caves was waving about at its withered feet. Connor saw its malformed arms and felt its arcane powers echoing, the Fade whispering the name _Architect_ to him when he felt Carver and Evie find themselves flanking Velanna’s sides. The darkspawn creature was surrounded by its dead minions and the two Wardens leapt to join the fight, Velanna’s fire scorching the beast’s legs as it let out a distinct screech Connor recognized as a terror demon in disguise.

“ _I am not the nest! This is the Fade!”_ Velanna shouted, Connor’s magic igniting a glyph of protection and support under her spread feet, and her conscious mind touched his roughly just to make sure he wasn’t another trick or threat. _“You are not the Architect! This is the **Fade!** I will not go back because this is the **FADE!** ”_

Carver’s sword swung in a wide arc and Evie’s shield was strong against a gout of black fire from the darkspawn’s mangled limbs. Connor felt Velanna’s magic sweep skyward and try to pull the cave ceiling open, summoning sunlight and fresh air that the demon soundly halted. Was the creature the darkspawn or was it the cave itself? The best way to find out was for Connor to pull his staff close in front of him, painting lines in his mind that echoed in the pliable nature of the Fade. The staff head fell and swung up, looping over and over and gathering focus.

He released the spell and lightning came thundering down. It broke stone, rent the walls, split the floor, and cracked the low dome of the cave ceiling with a shattering explosion. Velanna’s mind had already weakened it, Connor’s spell simply finished what she had worked hard to begin. The spells overlapped like threads in a loom and Velanna’s emboldened magic grabbed the edges of the prison the way her hands might have taken a piece of overripe fruit and crushed it before ripping the weak skin apart.

Connor landed solid and easy on his feet in the castle corridor again, with Evie and Carver slower to follow. The Terror demon was not dead, but its thin body and distended limbs had lost their illusionary covering and the creature shrieked furiously at them before Velanna’s staff cracked across its head, the bladed end hacking one arm off, and a crushing force broke and beat the rest of its miserable self to ashes.

“You two need to give a warning before blowing the whole dream up!” Hawke complained under his helmet, giving Mistress Howe a moment to collect herself before turning to face the three of them. She was still wearing the armour though- a tunic like Connor’s with a similar pauldron and a bit more metal plating down her arm to suggest a higher rank. The Fade told him she was a Sergeant?

“You’re not who I expected to see here.” Mistre- Warden Howe? Said to him? “Warden Velanna will do for now, Corporal. The Commander needed as many of us as he could get before marching on Redcliffe. How do you fare?”

“Grateful to see another mage here, honestly.” Connor admitted. “Every dreamer I’ve tried to help has been scared out of their minds, so I’d go ahead and call it another Nightmare demon. Its enthralled what must be every person Redcliffe castle, but what I can’t figure out is _how_.”

“It tore open the Veil.” Velanna dropped the reason and _oh maker_ , that was not what Connor had wanted to hear… “I have more questions for you but not enough time. We have to find Nathaniel- I mean,” she shut her eyes and gave her head a shake, annoyance echoing in the noisy prison. “The Commander. We have to find Surana, there are another two mage wardens with him. Between the five of us we should be enough.”

“I still think you had it right the first time,” Connor said, “The four of you were together when this happened, yes? Nathaniel can’t be far away.” Velanna wanted to argue because Connor could _hear_ her argument, but he knew how to get around it by saying: “We look for Surana, but if any of us hear Nathaniel we jump in and grab him.” A sound compromise.

“Thank you, Connor.” Velanna’s shoulders relaxed and they were off again.

Every time they released a dreamer the Fade became more distinct, more conscious minds feeding into what the environment ought to be like. It felt like a tunnel or a dungeon, some lower depths of a great castle and Connor was worried by the number of shimmering lights they still found way down here away from where the battle should have been happening.

“Wait!” Evie shouted, bringing the four of them to a fast halt. “This one? Ugh, I can feel the sand in my armour just walking by it. Connor?”

“ _Fuck_ , Nate, not sand…” Carver complained and Connor quickly wove around him, doubling back to the bright block of light resting in the wall. He listened for only a moment before hefting his staff up with both hands, checking to make sure the other three were ready, and then stabbed the bladed end into the prison block.

White light surged up from the ground and then Connor was bowled over and enveloped in a layer of hot, miserable, irritating, dusty orange _sand…_

“ _I hate Orlais!_ ” Carver’s voice echoed loudly, blowing the sand out of his own armour. The Fade had _terrible time_ bringing the desert to life around them, the sand turning to dust, to smoke, to filth that settled over his armour and- actually _no_ , the Fade was doing a stand-up job with the sand. The Fade had the Western Approach down _solid._

Blinding blue sky and ribbons of red and orange sand created a stark, barren landscape of harsh wind and no life. There was a horrible rumble through the ground that Connor distinctly remembered, and then he realized they were all scattered a single dune away from the great open maw of the wide Abyssal Canyon that gave the Approach its meaning to the Grey Wardens. A colossal scar in the world left behind by the Second Blight, the home of Darkspawn who crawled out of the broken land every night to riot on the surface.

They were on a dune just above the rift and Connor had been this close before: he knew this was not a fun or safe place to be. To his left and south along the canyon lip there was a great outcropping of stone, and under it-

“ _Nathaniel!_ ” Clawing on his belly trying to keep away from the edge, desperately reaching out for the support of ropes and dry timber of the old Warden lookout built on the large rock.

Connor was on his hands in the sand, and when he tried to push himself up the sand dune _tilted_ and slid the four of them forward and down. _Down_ towards the canyon mouth and so understandably, there was screaming. Connor was sliding face-down and when he dug his elbows into the sand it slowed but did not stop him, his body twisting and mind searching for magic because this felt _too real_ even if it was all the Fade, it was _just_ the Fade!

Magic erupted across the sand and twisted, stubborn roots blasted from the ground, anchoring with the simple purpose of _this is the Fade and you will not frighten me_. Like the teeth of a comb reaching up through the sand the branches twisted and caught the wardens, the sand still hissing dangerous and fast down their backs.

Connor saw Velanna’s staff-head glowing across her back as her feet found the roots and the same spell continued weaving. It was biting through the dune and arguing loudly with the physics of the nightmare to make the branches stay and hold the weight of four Wardens. Connor agreed loudly and willfully with Velanna’s spell, reinforcing it where he made up the back of the line, Connor and Evie ahead of him and walking nervously to get closer to Nathaniel.

“Where the hell were you when we were _really_ on the approach?” Carver asked loudly after Velanna. “This would have been fucking useful!”

“Take it up with Surana!” Velanna shouted back. “ _Nate!”_

Nathaniel was practically _swimming_ in sand. The old lookout was a great thumb of red stone protruding from the canyon wall, a look-out marked out on top with a wooden platform and ladder to help move from the sandy dunes and rise up over the canyon. Nathaniel was directly below the look-out, under the lip of the great rock where a collection of sand only ten feet long was all that kept him from sliding down into the canyon- and he was losing ground as the Wardens, led by Velanna, rushed to-

The dreamscape _shuddered_ and convulsed violently, a noise beyond hearing shearing through the air and Connor felt the demon _needle_ into his mind and snatch the memory from his resisting thoughts. How great _had_ the dragon been in size? How crimson its scaly hide? How long its crowning horns? How wide its massive, dune-sculpting wings?

_Tell m-_

_NO, GO AWAY!_

A bubble formed in Connor’s throat, ran up to the back of his mouth, bloomed through the base of his skull and popped loudly with an irritated crackle over his scalp. His whole form _wiggled_ with the _awful_ feeling that overcame him when Kindness surged up and plucked the demon’s fingers from his mind like feathers off a chicken. The Spirit was bristling and offended that the demon would try to use Connor’s memories to _hurt_ his friend, to _harm_ Nathaniel and keep him spinning in this awful, cruel, frightening, barbaric-

“ _Kindness-”_ He gasped, realizing he was on one knee and falling behind when the Fade screamed _again_ and this time what the demon wanted came to pass.

An Abyssal High Dragon: far larger than any other creature in Thedas, enough to fill the Vigil’s courtyard with its head alone and the massive crown of its horns splitting out from the centre of its face. Rusty red in colour with wings that blocked out the sun, talons curled on its front arms as long as Connor was wide. Its tail was just an extension of its torso, thick and heavy with enough power to slam dunes down flat in the stark terrain of the Western Approach.

The dragon ripped from the canyon’s black mouth, and the wake of its passing not only shredded the dune the Wardens were standing on trying to reach Nathaniel, but the wind picked Carver, Evie, and Velanna right up into the air and threw them away from the dark abyss. Connor felt them hit the sandy wasteland and cried out when Carver and Evie were handled like rag-dolls by the demon’s will, slamming down hard on shoulders and back in their heavy armour. Velanna fought back hard enough to land on her feet, her staff spinning and magic dancing to support the Wardens with her.

“Nathaniel-” Connor hiked a foot over the sand to run and help but stopped himself. They had to kill the demon and Connor had not _seen one_ this big before- and just to hold _one Warden?_ For the Commander, _maybe_ , but why would Nathaniel need a _high dragon?_ “Nathaniel!”

He ran for the look-out, carving steps out of the sand for himself as he held one hand out for balance and the other held his staff. Maker, he remembered this, he remembered dashing across a slope of pale yellow dust and screaming like a mad-man because they’d been fighting a fucking _dragon_ and his fucking _mentor_ had gone and-

“ _Nathaniel!_ ” Connor dropped into a skid, cut the dragging haft of his staff into the sand with ice to hold and anchor it to the rocky outcrop and thrust out his hand to snatch Nathaniel’s wrist. The Warden’s desperation for rescue and Connor’s demand that this nightmare end overpowered the demon just enough to make it happen, and he clutched _hard_ to the other man’s arm.

“ _Connor!”_ Howe stopped struggling but the sand was still streaming by him, pouring like a river trying to sweep him away.

 _“You!_ Have the _worst_ _fucking memories_ , sir!” Connor hollered at him in the fade because he _could not believe_ he had to relive this moment! “It’s the Fade! Nathaniel! You’re not in Orlais you’re at _Redcliffe!”_

_“The darkspawn-”_

“Not real! None of it’s real!” He shouted, “Velanna’s fighting the demon and you _have to_ get up!”

“She can’t be here!” The Warden yelled and Connor grit his teeth, forcing the ice holding them to the rock to grow and spread down. He made the ice cut and channel itself down and form a platform, thick and strong and better than what they’d really had to contend with the first time this had happened.

Howe had been hit by an emissary’s spell that had fogged and frightened his mind, causing him to tumble over the look-out’s railing and pitch into the sands below. Connor had seen it and run like a fool to try and save him and miracle of all miracles had been there to grab his hand before he fell into the canyon’s gaping maw. And now they were going through it _again!_

“ _Get up!_ ”

Nathaniel’s free hand grabbed the ice, snarling at the cold of it and his feet kicked through the sand, struggling hard with Connor grunting and hauling the other man forward. His boots found the ice and Connor had to stress himself _so hard_ when he felt the demon’s will activity plucking against the simple spell like loose threads. He couldn’t hold the staff and the platform together much longer.

“Move-” he grunted, sending Nathaniel out the other side of the great stone they were shaded under. But then the Hunter doubled back and he- “Quit waiting about, Howe!”

“The dragon was supposed to rise back up in front of us-” the Warden babbled, sounding lost. “That was how you killed it?”

“Are you really _tempting_ it now!? _”_ Connor yelled, startling Nathaniel back a step and making enough room for Connor to let go of his staff and quickly make the jump out from under the outlook. They scrambled together up the sandy incline on the other side and came out with a clear view of the dragon. Its great claws were slashing the sand, tail swinging like a tree as its wings beat the ground. Velanna’s magic roared and Hawke was dancing between the beast’s hind legs, the echo of Genevieve’s shield and sword bashing together carrying through the dream.

“This is the Fade, Connor?” Nathaniel asked him, calmer now and squinting into the glare with his dark brows down low. “Wasn’t I in the belly of Redcliffe Castle not too long ago?” He asked, and quite calmly removed his bow from his back, testing the string and give of the weapon.

“Aye, sir. Everyone got their own specially-made prison to keep them in, and this is yours.”

“Hmph. Nice and roomy, guess I can’t complain about that.” Nathaniel quipped and Connor felt himself grin watching the Hunter nock an arrow. “Kill the demon and get out?”

“Kill the demon and get out, sir.”

“Right then, _to it!_ ” And his mentor took off at a quick, spirited run, bow held low and arrow pointed down as his feet kicked light and fast over the terrain. Connor made to follow but then stopped himself. Nathaniel was running right towards the demon with no hesitation? He conjured his staff again, dawnstone and iron, the one he’d destroyed on the Approach fighting that damned dragon.

“Howe isn’t afraid of dragons…” he murmured, taking a step back, and then another, and then he turned and started walking with his back to the fighting. “He’s afraid of _Emissaries_.”

Connor told the demon that Emissaries were a kind of Darkspawn. The demon crooned back that it was a kind of Darkspawn with _magic_ not unlike his own. Connor reminded the demon that he was a Grey Warden, the Blight’s natural enemy. The demon cautioned him that the bridge of sand he conjured and stormed across as he marched to the outlook, and then past the outlook, and then over the canyon itself, would not hold him. Connor kindly asked the demon to hold that thought and he would be with it in a moment.

Connor broke into a dash, bent the bridge at the angle he wanted, and jumped off the edge before it crumbled. He held his staff in both hands as he fell fast and straight through the hot air, the head behind him and blade sharp and straight in the sun. He speared the weapon through the surprised form of the demon on its ledge just beyond the cusp of the canyon, and ice shredded through its body before it could reason or argue around him.

The reckless leap earned Connor a series of bruises when he hit the canyon wall and tumbled into blackness, but the canyon melded back into the now half-lit corridors of the castle depths. Connor stumbled but did not fall when he reappeared, closing his eyes and holding his forehead when he felt a dull pain kicking through his skull. He was _fatigued…_

“You did something reckless again, didn’t you?” Evie’s voice was there to hound him, worry cresting in her mouth as she spoke. “You went off on your own again?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” He asked, rising at the notion of him doing it _again_. “I didn’t go off on purpose, Evie, I figured it out when Nathaniel went to join you.” She cupped his face with both hands gently, but he found himself irritated by the mothering.

“Please be more careful.” She said. Carver came over to them in the half-light, clearly paying attention to what was said.

“I’ll be fine, Evie, I know what I’m doing.” Connor freed himself from her, feeling dim. Not tired, tired required a body and a heartbeat and limbs that were made of flesh and not thought. He felt _dim_ , like a light not strong enough to keep holding back the dark. Maybe this was just what tired felt like in the Fade.

“You should take a minute and rest, Connor.” Carver told him, “You’ve been using a _lot_ of magic and I know a bunch of the weird shit in each of those dreams was done by you too. Here, drink some water.” Connor couldn’t keep his irritation from spiking _sharply_ at that assertion. Drink water. Drink fake water. Drink fake dream water for his fake body in the Fade.

“This- this is the Fade, Carver. Rest doesn’t work like that.” But that didn’t stop Carver from holding the waterskin from his belt out to Connor now. “Fine.” Fake not-really-real water for his not-really-real body, fine, if it would make Carver happy then he’d pry the cork out and take several deep-

-sharp, metallic, chalky, thick-

Connor _spat_ the grey slime out, startling the Wardens and stumbling back away from them. Embrium was numbing his lips, he dropped the skin and the muddled grey liquid gurgled out, spitting at the floor with his arms braced on the stones.

This was a nightmare’s domain. Connor had not been properly captured but he was still in its realm and it still had power _over_ them all. He’d never eaten or swallowed anything in the Fade and now had been a wretched time to try it. He walked fast and hard away from Evie and Carver, ignoring both of them when he stopped only a few paces away, elbow resting on the wall, face down and trying to clear the awful sensation from his mouth.

_I have told Duty that we are freeing Grey Wardens._

Good, that was… finally that was some good news from Kindness. What had the Warden Commander said?

_To continue, but Duty is too busy to say more now._

What was Surana doing?

_Duty will not say. However, I was unable to answer Duty when the demon tried to enter your mind._

So Surana was _fighting_ something then. Alright, that sounded exactly like the Commander.

“Connor? Connor, I’m sorry.” Carver was behind him, his hand touching the middle of Connor’s back and making him twist uncomfortably before turning around to face him. His helmet was gone but yes, Carver was sorry. “What did that change in to? It’s a water-skin, it was meant to hold _water._ ”

“It doesn’t matter,” Connor answered shortly. “It wasn’t your fault, I wasn’t focused and the demon doing all of this took advantage. We should move on if Velanna and Nathaniel are ready.”

“That light I just saw around you, was that your spirit thing again?” Carver asked. Connor felt dim still and yes, this must have meant he was growing tired. Maybe he was dying. “What did it say?”

“Where are Velanna and Nathaniel?” He asked instead, finding them in the murk with their tattooed hands intertwined where the pair were standing nose-to-nose. Velanna may have felt his attention however, because the mage was the one to break from her husband first, and she gave Connor a brisk nod before leading Nathaniel over to listen. Connor got to it then.

“Kindness says Commander Surana knows we’re helping free Grey Wardens, but he’s also fighting something himself and his spirit can’t answer mine when they’re busy.”

“Is it the demon controlling everything?” Evie asked him, but Connor shook his head.

“I don’t think it would play games with me if it had Surana to contend with,” he explained. “And we’d be able to feel the dream shifting. The Fade would react more if the demon holding it together was under attack.”

“Velanna said you wanted to release the rest of the mages, correct?” Nathaniel asked now, his hand quite obviously placed on his wife’s shoulder but Connor doubted he was aware of it. “It’s what you lot are best at, isn’t it?”

“Yes, exactly that.” Connor answered. They were running out of time and even with Velanna here now Connor didn’t feel comfortable having only one mage who could stay with everyone. “You said there were five of us all together: you, me, Surana… do I know the other two?”

“Lavellan and Sephri, formerly Captain and Corporal, now both Warden Ensigns.” Velanna answered, but she had a narrow look on her face and there was a probing web of suspicion brushing against Connor’s thoughts. He knew Sephri didn’t _like_ him so aside from that Connor was ready to go.

Sephri was a strong fighter, she would do well in the Order and finding her wouldn’t be that difficult with her temper and primal magics. Lavellan was calmer, a lot like Surana in that regard and spells that confused and drained enemies of their will to fight would be just as, if not even _more_ effective in the Fade than without. Velanna was here already with her earth magic and healing abilities. Surana might have been about to lose his Circle mage but at least he had three others with complimenting schools to help the Order when Connor was gone. This was good. Things would be alright.

 “Pardon _me?_ ”

“I didn’t say anything,” Connor-

“He keeps doing that!” Evie cried out next to him, and Carver was stewing again as he rumbled up next to Connor in the Fade. “He’s convinced himself he’s going to die here! Velanna, stop him before he does something foolish again!”

“Evie-” Velanna cracked her staff on his head. “Ow-! _Ow?!”_ Spider-cracks of pain, the hard welt left from the wood, his own hand pressing down over the blazing spot. “What- _the hell did that accomplish!?_ ”

“To bring you to your senses so you stop acting like-” His temper _snapped_.

“I know more about _**my** _ situation than _any one of **you**!”_ Do not take that arrogant sneer with him, Mistress Howe, ex-Warden who ran away into the Deep Roads! “Do _not_ tell me how to act, what to say, or how to _fucking_ feel after all of this! I’ve been kept asleep for _days_ at a time since this started!” That was right! _Back down from him!_ “I’ve been beaten and locked up to die of withdrawal in a blacked out cell!” And he was going to die there he was going to die from it Connor was going to die he was going to die he was going to die-

“Warden Guerrin, stop this!” Velanna shouted at him and it was too much. The wasted time. Every single time they freed someone the whole group had to just stop and talk to them and say everything all over again and just keep chatting together and la-dee-dah not like anybody’s heart was about to stop at _any moment, no!_ “Connor, that’s not what we-”

“Kindness will help you: finish the rest yourself.” He felt the rage demon coming for him and drew his arms in tight, snapping them out with a wave of black smoke that sucked down before shooting him up through the ceiling.

He went up, and _away_ , and he didn’t listen or pay any attention at all to the voices that shouted after him. The whole prison was _filled_ with voices Connor didn’t need to single any of them out! He reformed several layers of nightmare and Fade-paths away from them, conjured his staff from the shadows, and walked on.

_My friend- why?_

“Leave me be, Kindness, and help them instead.”

_But, Connor-_

“Leave me be.”


	39. A Trap

“ _But you can’t!_ ” He screamed, voice bouncing off the Vigil’s dead stone walls, ignored by her waving red fires. “ _Soren! You can’t do this!_ ”

“I’m sorry, Oghren.” _NO!_ No he couldn’t be serious! “We have no information, no way of knowing where they might have taken Sorran or Tibben. It’s futile to search for them.”

 _“_ But you haven’t done anything _to try!”_ Oghren screamed again, his gut clenching hard and knotted, spittle retching up his throat because no, _NO!_ He was shaking all down his back and Ancestors curse him a thousand times there was no anger to light his fire and get him swinging and shouting for reason! “Search the Vigil! At least the settlement!”

“And risk the backlash?” His _friend_ on his throne with his staff and his glittering armour said. “Oghren, you have my deepest regrets, but the children are gone.” Not again! No! Not again, _he wasn’t going to lose his family again!_

“ _SOREN!_ ” He wailed, knees hitting the floors, hands down like a nug bowed for the tenderizing rod. “I named my little girl after you! Don’t do this! _Help me! Please!_ ”

“I am sorry, my-” A horrible noise thrashed through the throne room and Oghren could hardly see through his tears, mouth hanging open with his screams ignored.

The Vigil’s front doors splintered with a storm of magic only the surface and their mages could conjure. A white bolt lanced the top of Surana’s throne and blasted the seat to pieces, flinging down the Warden Commander. Soren scrambled for his staff and Oghren was numbed down to his bones with fear. Why would his closest friend and commander deny him the help to find his children? How could Soren, a father who loved his boy as much as Oghren loved his, say no?

“ _Die, demon!”_ Oghren’s questions probably had the same answer as how the hell Warden Guerrin could come raging through the Vigil’s throne room wreathed in lightning and moving like a Deep Road shade. His red hair had been braided in a short tail behind his head, scarred eyes blazing white with magic and blood leaking down his face. He broke Surana’s staff with one bludgeoning hit and used the wicked hook on the back end to gouge through the elf’s torso, shredding the armoured tunic and flinging him to the ground. Lightning struck with the hammer-blow Guerrin delivered to end the fight, and just like that Oghren was on his knees in a dark castle corridor that bore not even the slightest resemblance to Vigil’s Keep.

The battlemage offered him a hand to stand up, and with no other options left to him Oghren took it. His fear wasn’t choking him so hard anymore, his anger far enough away not to come running up like a familiar dog but at least the fear was fading. That was what he wanted most: no more fear.

“The veil around Redcliffe castle is torn and you were flung into the Fade, Constable.” Guerrin told him, and Oghren listened. “The demon controlling this place is a nightmare that preys on people’s fears. Your children are safe and when you return to Vigil’s Keep they will be there to greet you again as they always have. Surana has not abandoned the Grey Wardens, he is already fighting against the demon holding you here. Do you understand what I’ve told you?”

“Sure. We’ll say I do,” Oghren grumbled, dizzy and feeling completely out of sorts. So yeah, this was _definitely_ the Fade… Fuck. “Lead on, Warden.”

“No.” Guerrin held out a hand and behind him Oghren felt the hallway break down and collapse down with steps leading someplace else. “Follow that path to find the other Wardens. They should be releasing the others from their prisons just like I did with you, to help weaken the demon. Do not linger here.”

“And you?” He asked.

“I need to find Sephri and Lavellan before going to help Surana.” Sounded like a plan then. Let the mages do the magic shit and the Wardens do the fighting shit. “Fight well, sir.” And the mage turned to leave him.

“Hey, Guerrin!” Oghren barked, and the mage stopped and looked at him, and for whatever reason looked _pissed off_ about it. “In peace!”

“…Vigilance.” Good kid.

“In death!”

“Sacrifice.”

“In war!”

“Victory!”

Oghren gave a rough and ugly laugh, shaking out his arms and beating his chest with his fist twice just ta get the blood pumping! Fuck the Fade! Bullshit surface nonsense! Get angry! Get ready! He was gonna tear this demon a brand new hole just six inches down from the first one!

“To victory, Warden! _Get outta here!_ ” The exhausted human smiled at him. Oghren slammed his helmet down over his head, hefted his war hammer across his back, and tore off down the steps through the stupid dream world.

* * *

 

Connor found Warden Sephri in the Kirkwall Gallows. The blood-magic, screaming, and Templars explained away much of her ire against Connor for his favourable memories of the Fereldan Circle. Her demon wore the face of a Templar named Alrik whose mere mention made Sephri’s magic seize up with fright.

“You are a Grey Warden now,” he told her when the nightmare collapsed because she was still shaking hard, unable to breathe until his will took hers firmly and _made_ her calm down. “You are Warden Ensign Sephri of Ferelden and you are no Templar’s plaything or charge. You make men stand at attention and with caution, because you command the powers of the Fade and your companions _need_ that magic now. Stand, Warden Sephri!”

“How did you escape?” She asked him a short time later as they ran through the halls of Redcliffe castle, searching for Lavellan or Surana- whoever they could find first. “From your nightmare?”

“I wasn’t captured.” Was all he told her, and then they found the former Captain raging as a crystal platter in one of the dining halls. Sephri grabbed it and they landed in a burning human city.

They found Mahanon Lavellan, clansman of the Lady Inquisitor and Second to their Keeper, on his knees holding the bodies of two dead Dalish children. He was surrounded by the shattered, burning bodies of Dalish aravels and butchered halla, screaming el’vhen words that the Fade wouldn’t translate as he rocked the children like they were sleeping. The memory told them so much more than Mahanon could have possibly wanted shared: how the clan had been blamed for poisoned water, how red lyrium had been the real cause, how the Inquisition had tried to help but poor decisions had brought soldiers from two factions together with the clan caught right in the middle. The children, the elders, the hunters, the keeper, all dead.

“ _I know it’s not real-”_ Mahanon wept when they tried to get him to come away from the carnage. “ _I cannot abandon them again…”_

The demon wore Inquisitor Lavellan’s face but Connor’s faith was no more stressed by this than his loyalty to the Warden Commander had been by Oghren’s nightmare. It was just a demon, not the real Herald of Andraste, but visions of violence were difficult to forget and Connor was neither hurt nor surprised when Mahanon turned on him in the dining hall of Redcliffe Castle.

 _“Shemlen scum!_ ”

“Is this about race, Ensign?” Connor bit back at him, his staff batting away the other mage’s strikes. “Is this about humans and the Inquisition killing you Clan? Then remember who it was that you followed here!” Mahanon had hatred in him, so much so that it almost blinded him when Connor spoke down to him. “You didn’t follow humans, Warden Lavellan, you followed the Hero of Ferelden and a mage descended from Arlathan the same as you!”

“ _Do poison that name with your tongue!”_ Oh, _enough_.

Connor dragged him down into the stone floor, and then slammed him with stone bricks around his waist, his chest, his shoulders, and arms. He buried the mourning elf in hard slabs of brute force and felt his will crush Mahanon’s tight within the prison, setting the staff blade against the other mage’s throat.

“Warden Ensign Lavellan,” He pronounced the name _loudly_ and _slowly_ so the hurting man would _hear him_. “You are trapped in the Fade where my power by far outstrips your own. You a skilled mage of honourable reputation, you have served and represented your people _well_. Your Commander needs his Grey Wardens to help him break down this prison that has enthralled the armies of Amaranthine and Redcliffe. If you refuse that obligation, then you have abandoned your brothers-in-arms and turned your back on those who need your help to escape their own worst nightmares and torment. Will you answer your Commander, Warden?”

“…I shall,” Lavellan grunted. His eyes were bloodshot, cheeks wet in the Fade from his screaming. Nostrils flared he struggled to keep his mad twitches concealed, his voice raw and Connor’s blade still poised against his skin.

“What is your answer?” He demanded.

“Bring me the demon- and I will slay it.” Connor pulled back the blade and released the other mage, giving him a hand to get back on his feet. “What changed you like this?”

“Follow me and keep focused, we don’t have time to chat.” The pain between his eyes was persistent and steady now. It was paired with the ache slowly biting down in his chest. Connor was dying, but not dead yet as the Fade rolled under his feet. He pushed it back down hard, moving walls and opening doors to let him through.

Lavellan’s curiosity was reigned in and replaced with a quiet hum of respect. Sephri had moved from gratitude to a state of obedience. The simple fact that they believed and trusted what he was saying was enough to take some of the strain off Connor’s mind as he pushed stubbornly through the castle. He changed course less often the more the result of his steam-rolling convinced the others that he was powerful enough to achieve whatever it was they wanted. Their belief focused their will, and soon enough Connor wasn’t pushing anymore, he was merely directing the other mages on where to go.

It was a great burden off of him, and gave him plenty of warning before they encountered something new in the dream realm.

“ _Connor…! Connor…”_

It was a prison like the others, but this one was _massive_. It stood human-sized and glittered blue and red and white, crystalline but shimmering with fingers of flame. The starlight crackled and whimpered piteously, begging mournfully for help and release. It called his name, it reached for him. Maybe it was…?

“It’s not the Commander.” Sephri said, hearing the direction of his thoughts. “I don’t like it; it’s made to draw our attention.”

_And it’s working._

All three of them turned hard, weapons and magic ready, when they heard the voice. Soft footsteps, an open heart, a soft glow at the top of winding, crooked stairs. They were standing in Redcliffe Castle’s grand foyer, and Connor looked up where he felt his attention drawn next.

_I appear before you not to aggress and rave, but as an answer to the plea of many kin._

“Name yourself, Spirit!” Lavellan shouted, but his guard was already relaxing. Yes, it was a spirit.

_My name is as it is as it has always been. I am a Spirit of Loyalty, ushered to this battle by Kindness and obliging towards Duty._

“Loyalty ran straight into the mouth of a demon?” Sephri asked, but really she answered her own question with that. Why _wouldn’t_ Loyalty run into a demon’s lair?

“Loyalty, I am a friend of Kindness.” Connor said. “Do you bring a message from it?”

_No. I followed the echoing cries of sundered trust._

Those words _stung_ , they-

_Kindness forgives many things and Duty expects far more, but Loyalty stands tested and proven true. If Kindness will not abandon the tasks set by a frightened heart, then Loyalty will shield the bulwark that cuts the demon to its quick; the beacon to be followed._

Wait- loyalty _to_ Connor? Not his loyalty to Surana, or-? The Spirit wanted him as the source and not just one of the people feeding into it?

_The middle link in the chain is the one most prone to snapping. Loyalty above, below, and across in a web of dependence and reliance that needs a powerful core. Duty will protect against Pride, Kindness will fend off Rage, and Loyalty will guide the way to Fear._

Loyalty’s voice felt… more defined than Kindness’. Loyalty was not a bird, or a small soft critter, and it wasn’t airy and small. Loyalty was very much in front of him, tinted lush and fresh, strong and enduring. It felt like speaking to a grand old tree like those of the Wending Wood, and Connor was very much aware of the Spirit reaching out to him and awaiting his answer.

“Will forming a bond with you replace the one I have with Kindness?” He asked, because it was important that he not damage what he already had. Even if Connor was about to vanish at any moment he didn’t want to break his friendship with Kindness by accident. Being abandoned… Maker this was all a confusing mess.

_No more than forming a new friendship breaks an old one. Loyalty will never betray Friendship, Courage, Duty, Kindness, Valor, or any of the rest. Loyalty will never betray Warden Connor unless he betrays himself first._

“I’ve already done that once today, unfortunately.”

_Kindness does not believe that to be true._

They didn’t have time for Connor to keep waffling about on this matter. He took Loyalty’s offer and there was a bright twist of light, the Fade moving and adjusting. Unlike Kindness who was evanescent and intangible, Loyalty stood now in a form that… shocked… him.

“Why would you…?”

“Because a loyal heart never forgets its friends.” Wild, tangled black hair in what almost counted for a short braid, dark tea-stained red skin, the most expressive green elven eyes and full apples in grinning cheeks. Loyalty wore a Circle apprentice robe that was green instead of blue and could have been no more than fifteen by face, just slightly younger than Jylan had been before taking the Rite of Tranquility…

“Jylan never communed with spirits-” Connor fumbled, and then shook his head. They had to move on: this had to _wait_.

“We’ll talk later.” Jy- _Loyalty_ agreed, adopting a long-forgotten cadence and flippancy as the elven youth danced backwards quickly up the stairs away from the crying crystal. “Lets be quick and ruin Nightmare’s fun. Are you coming, Wardens?”

“ _Connor-!”_ The crystal wept.

Yes. Connor was quick to get up the stairs and leave the wailing, begging trap behind.

They were coming.

* * *

 

Why would he leave? Why would Connor do that to them? Why would he just-? With so much rage, just take off and tear away in the Fade like that?

_Because he is afraid._

“I didn’t ask you, Kindness!” Carver barked, irritated because the spirit he hadn’t been able to see or hear before Connor vanished now _would not piss off!_ Bother Velanna! Pester Evie! Leave him alone!

_You perceive a wrong where this is none-_

“ _Shut up! You’re not helping!”_

“Carver,” Evie came to him clad in armour and Carver smacked his hands on his helmet, bashing the sides of his head because he was _so damned angry_ he didn’t know what to do!

_You are not angry, you are afr-_

“Make it leave me alone! I can’t stand it- and it will not _shut up!”_

“What is it saying, Carver?” She asked him because they had the time to talk. “Kindness will not go to Velanna and it is our only connection to Connor and the Commander’s spirit.” Carver gnashed his teeth at her and knew she couldn’t see it but she’d still _know_ because this was the _fucking Fade_.

Velanna, Nathaniel, and two other Wardens were engaged in another battle with one of the prisons. It would burst at any moment but until they had the numbers Oghren agreed it was unwise to send any teams that lacked a mage or a dwarf into the nightmares. Oghren had marvelled at the fact that the demon was almost pathetically clear to him as long as he wasn’t the one it was targeting, probably an effect of Dwarves not having a natural connection to the Fade. He had taken four surrendered Redcliffe Militia with him to try and break one of their captains free.

“If Kindness has anything useful to say-”

“It doesn’t! It’s just annoying prattle!” There came a warmth flowing down his shoulders, sinking against his arms and- “ _Do NOT hug me!”_ He bellowed and swatted his arms around again! Damned thing! “I’m better than this! I’m a Warden, I’m a soldier, and I have been my whole life! Stop bringing me back to this, Kindness: I need to focus and stop _going to pieces_ like this!”

_Tell her!_

“ _Shut up!_ ”

“Carver- talk to me! Not it, talk to _me_.” No. He didn’t want to talk about this and he didn’t want to think about it and he didn’t want to bring it up and go over it and let it come spilling out of his mouth how-

“-he told me something I’ve wanted to hear for _so long_ and I turned it into a joke, Evie.” _Maker burn the whole damned Fade!_ “I didn’t _answer_ him, I didn’t say how I felt, and I didn’t tell him how long he’s been missing or what it’s done to me knowing he’s been in danger all this time. I sat there, _moments_ after he rescued me from my worst memory and I made a _stupid joke.”_

“He’s powerful in the Fade,” Evie tried to comfort him with that. “I’m sure he knew what you meant to say instead?”

“It doesn’t matter!” He shouted back, “It shouldn’t have to be something he has to suss out of me! He said it clearly! Bright as day! Right in front of me and I couldn’t pay him the simple curtesy of a proper answer! And I know! I know I should calm down, and I keep _trying to_! I keep trying to push this away and like Connor said, just- _focus!_ But I can’t!” And he couldn’t. He couldn’t part emotion from action because in the Fade they were the _same damn thing_. He was scared. Carver was _so scared_.

“We’re trapped in a Fear demon’s domain and here I am weeping terror like a little boy.” He admitted thickly, wishing the tears felt real because then he could wipe them away and have them gone. “He’s run off convinced he’s going to die in a place where thinking something too hard makes it _happen_ , Evie.”

He reached for her and Evie took his hands in both of hers, and it didn’t feel _right_ but it felt like _enough_ when her sympathy and support and that mutual ring of fear echoed from his heart to hers.

“It doesn’t matter what he’s been poisoned with or how long he was locked up for: if he’s convinced he can’t survive this then he _won’t._ ” And Carver couldn’t live with that. Carver couldn’t live with knowing Connor couldn’t believe in them long enough to at least get him out of the Fade…

Maker, he’d been here so long he’d started _sounding_ like a Spirit. Silently speaking to Kindness, phasing through walls, talking without actually saying anything, growing cryptic and reserved at all the wrong times- it was like talking to Anders on a bad day years ago... What if it hadn’t been Connor at all? What if he really was…

_He has not died. He is afraid, just like you are._

“How is hearing all of this supposed to be _kind?”_ he moaned.

_He carries so much fear of what is to come. The only hope he can cling to is the one that protects the people most important to him: you must escape, because there is little Kindness can do against the power of Despair._

“We have to get out of here…”

“We will, Carver.” Evie told him, knocking the edge of her helmet against his in the dark. “And we’ll take him home with us when we go.”

Velanna and Nathaniel returned in a brilliant shock of light a few moments later, Oghren and his team not far behind. Captain Renth of the Silver Order was deeply shaken but wore her tears openly, without shame for whatever it was she’d faced. The Redcliffe Officer surrendered: between the army and the demons, he would fight no more for House Guerrin.

“You’ll fight for your life is what you’ll do.” Carver told him sharply, and then they fell into the discussion _yet a-fucking-gain_ about what was happening.

They’d decided that every person ripped from the demon was a victory in itself. Connor would have gone mad at their pace and Kindness was what let them know when the two other mages were freed by him. Velanna refused to join the other magi because they needed a mage with them, and she was convinced that once Surana and Connor began fighting the Nightmare demon in earnest they’d all have their chance to contribute.

They fought slowly but thoroughly through the castle and watched it become more and more distinct around them. They rotated who dove into the dreams with Velanna and Oghren, increasing the number of teams when Warden Higarth and Warden Rentar were both freed and Oghren brow-beat the dwarven pair into following him further through the dreams so they knew what to look for.

They’d grown from a group of four without Connor to nearly twenty when they reached a massive, sparkling crystal hovering in the middle of Castle Redcliffe’s grand foyer. The castle doors were open behind it and they could hear people crying out beyond it, wide stairs sweeping up out of sight overhead. The prison shimmered and burned brilliantly.

“You five!” Oghren grunted, ordering teams about towards the different, smaller items glittering and shining with feeble cries for help. “Take that block in the wall there. Renth! With me for the doorknob. Howe! Take your wife and the clunking duo and deal with that eye-sore!”

“Aye, sir.” Nathaniel answered, off the cuff and looking to Velanna. Carver was anxious, Kindness had fallen quiet with the crystal’s appearance and had little to say about it- but what the spirit _did_ reveal got his blood boiling.

“Kindness says it’s a trap set for Connor,” he grunted, trying to grind his teeth in the Fade but frustrated that he couldn’t _feel it_ right. “But he’s already passed by this way without getting caught in it.”

“If we were anywhere but the Fade with a mage who isn’t quite himself,” Nathaniel scoffed at the crystal, bow in hand. “I’d scold him for leaving it armed. As it is, lets just deal with it. There’s someone stuck in there, aye?”

“Someone the demon thinks Connor wants out.” Carver confirmed, Kindness brushing gently across his wrist, frustrating him when it brought the rambling question of who and _how_ could Connor pass someone reaching out for him personally? Just because it was a trap? What if it had been Carver or Evie? What if it was his sister Rowan? How much of himself had he lost in this place to ignore someone screaming for his help by name?

Nathaniel shot the crystal with an arrow and the explosion of sharp white pieces blacked out the world around them. It all became dark again like the first time Carver had walked the nightmare, the world intangible except himself, his body clear and focused and almost real. Evie to his right not far away in the abyss, Nathaniel and Velanna bringing up the rear of their square formation.

A hazy blue light was far ahead of them in the black, and the Wardens advanced on the sound of muffled, broken-hearted weeping.

 _“Connor… Connor… no… Connor…”_ Was that… his mother? _“It shouldn’t have been this way- Connor, my boy… my sweet boy, no…”_

They couldn’t see her. They could _hear_ her and her voice was coming from the light, but as they advanced there was no sound except her weeping words.

 _“You were born to be a Fereldan Lord like your father…”_ Carver was ready and reacted when a sword swept down and cut the darkness at him, the edge scratching hard over his silverite vambrace before catching on his blade and striking off. _“A man of the Landsmeet, and Arl of Redcliffe.”_

Carver lashed out and his sword glanced off a Redcliffe shield. The recoil helped him raise his guard and twist the blade down to parry a hard swing that came down at his head. He wasn’t ready for the boot of hard red Fereldan leather that slammed out at his knee and knocked him down, too stunned by the face of the swordsman in fur-trimmed armour and gold chains who blocked one of Nathaniel’s arrows off his shield and parried Evie’s sword.

“ _It’s not him!_ ” Velanna shouted, but Connor’s auburn hair bore several beaded braids around his temples, his beard trimmed thick but short in the Fereldan style across his whole face. He wore an Arl’s gold chains across his shoulders and a thick Alamarri dagger stuck through his belt, the white fur at his wrists and throat shifting as he danced between Evie’s sword and his shield struck hers hard enough to take her off her feet with a startled cry.

 _“When Cailan refused to put aside that low-brow, barren woman: that was when your father and I knew you would be king one day.”_ Isolde’s voice continued, unperturbed by the fighting and holding that mourning tremble. Carver forced himself back up on his feet and his arms shook hard when his swing at Connor’s back was blocked by the sword, then reinforced by the face of the shield again and shoved off. He wasn’t that _strong_ \- he was a _mage_ he hadn’t touched a sword and shield since he was a child! _“Alistair’s ascension meant nothing when he also took Anora as his Queen: Connor **Guerrin** should have been his Heir.”_

The crown was forming around his temples as his mother spoke, and Carver couldn’t handle this: it was fake, it was _fake!_ The demon had wanted Connor to fight and kill himself and Carver would not _have it!_

 _“You were meant to be a king, someone who would **die** for his country if called upon.”_ Nathaniel landed an arrow under Connor’s jaw, shocking him with a fountain of bright red blood and a hideous gasp. Evie’s sword found the folded seam of his armour and ran him through, the horrible smell of his blood and the warm weight of his body staggering into her shoulder told them all how much she wanted to scream. _“You were going to make a powerful Orlesian marriage, and bring an end to **decades** of fighting between Fereldan and Orlais…”_

Velanna’s magic burned the _king_ away to ashes and Carver wanted out of this place. Evie reclaimed her sword and the blood sliding down the steel horrified them both. Killing the demon hadn’t done anything- Connor wasn’t the demon? They were no closer to the Arlessa before she continued weeping.

 _“You were going to be a king, Connor, but then the Maker cursed your father and I for our hubris…” No_ , no, no, Carver didn’t want to go through this again, he wasn’t going to just- _“A mage…”_

He blinked and he saw Connor younger than he knew him. Too young, too meek. Not a man in his twenties but a boy hardly able to shave. He wore a long robe of dark blue slashed with gold, and a terrified look with his eyes travelling their blood-stained party over and over, hands up, lips trembling, backing away from them.

 _“The Maker **cursed you** with something **too vile** to bear.”_ His mother sniffled and wept around them but Connor was backing away, retreating quickly in the blackness and there was nowhere else to go but forward, after him. That they came closer frightened him even more and Maker Take Him Carver wanted to _stop_. It felt like they were _hunting_ him… _“We sent you to the Circle so you would be safe from yourself, and when Rowan was born we couldn’t risk your poison reaching her. My poor girl- my sweet boy… I’m so sorry, Connor…”_

The Apprentice hit a wall he couldn’t move past. He tried, Maker, he _tried_ to find a corner, an edge, a top he could grab and scramble over. He rubbed his hands down and up again, looking back fearfully with tears spilling over. He wanted so desperately to get away but this was the only way forward.

_“You should have died in that tower…”_

“How can she talk about him like this?” He heard Nathaniel ask, the Warden’s voice thick and the anxiety between the four of them almost as heavy as the dream Connor’s fears. “Her own _son?_ ”

They came too close and finally Connor dropped on his knees, hands up in front of him in a show of prayer. He was sobbing and heavying silently, a pantomime of a young mage with nowhere to run and armed men and women advancing on him.

“I can’t do this-” Carver finally blurted out.

“That’s why it’s a trap, Hawke.” Nathaniel bit back, but the deep regret on his face was _obvious_ when Carver looked at him. “You two close your eyes. Think of something else. Whatever the hell works in this wretched place.”

Closing his eyes didn’t work, turning away didn’t work, trying to think of anything except Nathaniel’s blade cutting deep into Connor’s throat and spilling his life away _didn’t work_.

“ _If you had just taken the fate decided for you by the Templars and prayed for your soul I know the Maker would have heard you, my poor boy. He would have taken you to his side in a moment, and undone all the hurt and harm you had to endure. I know he loves you, Connor, I know the Maker will always, always watch over you…_ ”

“I never want this woman near him _again-_ ” Evie gasped under her helmet, walking with shoulders slumped low and feet dragging. “I’ll drag her to the Orlesian border myself. Telling her own son he _should have_ died!”

They reached the light and it was a curtain of brilliance that parted, showing a long corridor with a fireplace burning brightly in one wall, a private space Carver intrinsically understood to be the family wing of Castle Redcliffe. Sitting on the floor in the middle of the red rugs was Arlessa Isolde, and cradled across her lap and bleeding heavily on her dress was the body of a young boy who she was rocking gently. She was crying over him and whispering her horrible words about how her son _was wrong_ to have _survived_ …

“You should have died when the demons rampaged through Redcliffe the first time…” The evil woman spoke down to her _son_ who was _dying_ in her _arms_. “I saved you, I begged for you, Connor- but I should have known. Magic is a curse that corrupts everything it touches. If you had died innocent and ignorant of your powers then the Maker would have taken you to his side before anything else could hurt you. Anything to keep you from becoming this _monster…_ ”

Was she the demon? Let her be the demon. Maker _Take this whole damn place_. Carver wanted out and he wanted her to _stop talking_ like that! How could a mother tell her son how he should have died? How could a mother _regret_ saving her child’s life!?

“A _monster_ , that’s what you are!” She wept down at the child, Carver could only see his auburn hair and knobby legs, but he was _sick_ with anger listening to her. “Poisoned blood and no sense of honour left in you! Defying the Maker with _every_ step you take! You abandoned the Circle, your family, your home, and for what?”

“To get away from _you_ , mother.” Carver took a step back when the voice and then the Warden pulled from the wall. He’d seen Connor do it several times since entering the Fade and it sure as all hell looked like him again now. Had he doubled back when they sprung the trap on themselves? Had he thought they were in real danger and not just clearing the way in the boldest and fastest possible manner? “To get away from your _poison!”_

He looked _awful_. His red hair was ragged from fighting, the braid coming apart behind his head. His scarred face unshaved and filthy, blood trickling down between his eyes from a point in his brow where something had struck him. His warden armour was abused from the wolves and fire and so many other parts of the nightmares, and he walked with a predatory hunch to his shoulders, staff head low over the plush rugs as he circled her.

“ _You did this to me!”_ Connor shouted at the Arlessa, who burst into sobbing tears. “You poisoned me! You _paid them to!_ You ripped me away from everything I had, the only life I _ever_ wanted for myself, and you _killed me for it!_ ”

“Connor-” she begged.

“ _Kinslayer!_ ” Connor was venom and anger as he hissed at her, the toxic rage that had stolen him away from them in the nightmare was so potent Carver almost coughed on it as he passed by. “Murderer! Drowning your own children in blood! The Maker didn’t curse me with magic- he cursed me with you! _You!_ And your assassins!”

“Kill him- _please…”_ Isolde gasped, bowing her head low and cradling the dead child closer to her heart. “He’s a monster- he says these horrible things to me.”

“ _They’re true!_ ” Connor bellowed back at her, and then he turned to Carver, walked to him and pointed at his mother’s hunched back. “Kill her! You’ve lingered here long enough: Velanna and Nathaniel are already gone! Kill the damned thing and get out of here before the demon closes its trap any tighter around you!”

“You-” Carver gasped. But it was true: Nathaniel and Velanna had vanished, “You’re not-”

“Oh,” Connor’s face pulled back, shoulders dropping with an open manner that immediately devolved into disdain and anger. “Is that how it is? I rush back here with my life slipping away like sand through my fingers, Carver, and you doubt me?” Wha- no! He- “You just- suddenly know better than I do? Are you going to make a joke about it in a minute? Go ahead! I’m listening. Make me laugh, Hawke.”

“Connor,” he tried again, tongue-tied.

“You’re _not_ Connor-” Evie started, sword bare and ready until he turned on her.

“You’re taking _his side?_ ” Connor drilled her, and Evie took a misstep. “Of course you’re taking his side! You won’t even hesitate to run me through with that, Evie? You’ll take that chance and kill me? Just- _kill_ me? That’s it? That’s all it takes…?” He wound his words down low and Carver saw the defeat sink into him, Connor shaking his head so slowly he looked dizzy. “I don’t know what I expected. I’m not… anything _to_ you after all, not with that dead husband of yours nobody knew about-”

“That was years ago and I am not _explaining_ _myself_ to a demon!” Evie shouted at him, but Connor just gave an angry little laugh and turned away from them, hefting his staff and taking a jaunting pace back towards his mother.

“A demon takes my mother’s form and you two make me kill it myself.” He said with disgust, the staff’s hooked blade glinting in the firelight. “Isn’t that just _precious._ ”

Carver closed his eyes and Andraste said: _At last, the Light shall shine upon all of creation, if we are only_ **_strong enough_** _to carry it._ He wasn’t strong enough but he carried his sword up anyways.

He carried it and he plunged it down through Connor’s back and _please Maker, Andraste, Aegis, Havard, and Shartan._ Everyone and anyone who could hear him, please, _please make this the right choice…_

Carver landed on his knees in the warmly lit foyer of Redcliffe castle, his sword naked and tip biting into the rug under him. He released the blade and it clattered loudly on the ground, pried his helmet off and oh _Maker_ he was _sobbing…_ he couldn’t stop. He’d killed Connor… He’d killed him… He’d taken him right through the back like a coward and he’d _killed him…_

“Hawke!” Velanna’s thin hands came down on him and he shouldn’t have been able to feel them through his armour but he did and he _hated the Fade_ … “Hawke, the trap spat Nathaniel and I out when it couldn’t hold us. You killed it, Connor’s mother is here and she’s safe.”

“Throw her on Maferath’s cold grave!” He shouted through his sobbing, “I want nothing to do with that _snake!”_

He’d killed him, he’d killed him, _Oh Maker. Lead him into darkness and leave him there. Bury him in his regrets where no flame would warm his soul…_

_It was a demon!_

“Go away, you wretched light-” he gasped, losing his prayer with Kindness’ incessant bothering.

_I couldn’t find you through the prison wall. Loyalty guides him forward to find Duty and Pride._

Duty meant Commander Surana, so Loyalty-? Loyalty was another spirit that had found Connor? He was… alright?

_You slew a demon to protect his mother, and it is a good thing._

“No- _she_ is not a good person!” Carver argued boldly, finally looking around him. Velanna was still kneeling next to him touching his shoulders, his armour reforming properly so he couldn’t feel her touch anymore. Nathaniel was kneeling next to the Arlessa who was flung across the floor, weeping dramatically, but it was so _painfully_ false and obvious in the Fade that Nathaniel was visibly fighting to keep from snarling at her.

There was an electric crackle and Oghren’s team returned, a Silver Order soldier staggering heavily and falling to the floor before being helped up. Higarth and his troupe came back with another Warden, the weak-kneed elf leaning heavily on a Knight of Redcliffe.

Carver moved from where he was kneeling to the wide open doors of the castle, looking down a flight of impressive stairs and…

“Captain Renth!” He shouted, “This is your calling.” The Captain hurried to him immediately, Velanna stepping forward first to get a proper look down.

“Definitely the Commander’s work.”

The courtyard was _black_ and smoking. There were perhaps thirty men and women gathered in two distinct clusters across the yard from each other, unease and distrust ringing strong in the air between them. Wardens and Militiamen on one side, Redcliffe’s cowering defenders on the other. How Surana had freed as many prisoners in one go as had taken their company this much time was _none_ of Carver’s business, but every stick of something flammable was gone and that likely had something to do with it.

“Did he leave them behind for the same reason Connor left us?” Carver asked, and Velanna looked at him quietly, an answer on her lips before she held it back. Yes. Her ultimate resolve was that yes: it was the same reason. Surana hadn’t wanted to explain and had needed to move quickly. Fucking mages…

“Arlessa Isolde, you will address your men.” Captain Renth’s firm voice stated from inside, and then she came out leading the blood-stained woman out by the arm. “We will combine forces and stand against the demon holding us prisoner here, and then _maybe_ the Warden Commander will spare your routed forces from further humiliation.”

“ _Let me go-!_ ” The weak woman shrieked.

“Nothing beyond the courtyard was dragged into this mess, Arlessa!” Renth snapped, “The men of South Reach and the Grey Warden scout companies are unharmed! When the Veil is fixed do you honestly expect your men to stand and continue the battle? We have a hundred and forty fresh men _waiting_ for this shit-storm to calm down. You _will_ address your men. You _have_ lost the day!”

“ _My husband-_ ”

“Is _dead!_ ”

Carver looked to the sky and found something almost as disturbing as the scream that ripped through the Arlessa. Her heartbreak was genuine; the soul-crushing _fear_ of what it meant; the disbelief and shocking refusal for the words to be true. She was someone who judged her children’s value on how they lived up to her plans and ideas of them, someone who felt poised to judge when and how her son’s life should be forfeit. But she screamed when she heard her husband was dead and Carver was staring at the broken sky over their heads.

The Fade was blue? Not normal blue, more like a deep dark film that had covered everything from the clouds to the walls of the keep. There were no hills or landscapes beyond them, only endless sky from the main wall out into nothing. They were floating in a pale blue sphere of nothingness, a jagged black crack marking the sky. It eerily spoke of towers and boulevards, rooftop gardens and cascading terraces. The Black City was gazing down at them, and that confirmed once and for all that this was the Fade.

“Kindness, can you lead me to where Loyalty is?” He asked the broken air.

_Only if your will can carry you that far._

“And even if we don’t find them right away, as soon as the battle starts we’ll all likely end up in the same place anyways?”

_All except the dreamers still held in their prisons, who may be preyed upon by the demon to increase its strength._

“I think the others have that in hand. Evie!” He gestured for her to follow him, and knowing the risks of what he wanted to do wasn’t enough to stop him. She parted herself from a cluster of Wardens, voices and attention rising outside and drawing the soldiers out of the foyer to see what was going on. Renth and Oghren would rally the men, and they would be strong enough to handle the Arlessa.

“Are you two off to find him, then?” Nathaniel’s voice called out when Carver and Evie were already on the first platform up the stairs. They looked back and felt his solid approval even if it was hard to find him in the milling activity. “Make sure he understands that this is the _only_ time he’s allowed to run off on his own like an idiot! If he pulls this shit the next time we’re in Orlais I’ll wring his magical neck- you tell him that!”

“Yes, Lieutenant!” Evie chirped back.

“You got it, Boss!”

They didn’t go further than the next flight of stairs before Carver stopped them again.

“Remove your helmet a moment?” She didn’t understand him but she did what he asked. Carver hated keeping track of whether he was wearing his helmet or his gauntlets or not in the Fade but made sure he took them off now.

He took her face in his hands and he kissed her. Firm and proper. He couldn’t feel the texture of her shaved hair or her smooth dark skin, couldn’t smell the persistent linger of roses on her armour or body, but he kissed her and held it for longer than he might have before. Then he let her go.

“That was… very nice.” She murmured to him, confused. “Different. What are you trying to say, Carver?”

“Please stay with me,” he blurted out and refused to be ashamed of it. “He loves you and I care for you greatly, so if I fuck up again with him, Evie, I want you to hit me very hard with something.”

“Erm, like a chair?” She suggested.

“Yes, _exactly_!” Carver chattered, trying to be excited because he didn’t know how else to act. “Hit me with a chair, or even an entire desk! Do whatever it takes to smack some sense into me, Evie, _please._ ”

“My dear, I have been trying to do that since we _met._ ” Evie spoke to him in that affectionate, taunting way he loved so much and it was almost enough for him to ignore the fear still stirring cold and crackling under both of them.

“I can’t lose him, Evie.” He whispered, betraying that fear. “Not like this.” She returned the favour by taking his face between her warm palms and kissing him gently, soft and kind. Trying to calm him down…

“Put your helmet back on, my love.”


	40. Archmage Surana

Morrigan’s body _hurt_. Her will, her focus, her magic that _twisted_ and _ached_ trying to hold the transformation together. It was her fastest form and that was why she was putting herself through this. If he dared to die before she reached Redcliffe then Morrigan would personally hold his spirit in the Fade and impart just _how_ unacceptable that choice was.

Her wings beat the land and her shoulders tore and ripped with exhausted pain, tendons pulling hard on the bones and wrenching the limbs from alignment. When the castle was within sight the knowledge of the Well of Sorrows tried to tell her the reason for her panic, but it was drowned out by the noise of Mythal’s magic holding her body in its alien form. She was in too much pain to focus on more than one goal, and that goal was to reach the castle and demand a reason for the damaged connection between her ring and her love’s.

She lost the power of flight and like a salamander dragged herself forward through the thin winter trees, climbing the rise over the castle’s defensive road. She crested the hill to the sound of frightened and readied soldiers, looking down on several columns of armoured men: Bryland’s army. She had neither strength nor reason to attack them, and with a ragged exhale she let the painful form _finally_ release her flesh.

She slipped from dragon to raven and _oh_ , her wings still hurt, her torso tight with fatigue and feet and talons tender. Morrigan flew and let herself glide through the cold winter air, bones brittle with pain and vision beginning to blur. She could feel what was wrong and she could see the head of the train, two companies of Grey Wardens gathered on this end of Redcliffe’s defensive bridge near the head of the South Reach army. Morrigan angled herself down with all eyes on her form and folded from bird back to woman.

There was stunned silence from the people as she landed, hard, on her feet and with a stumble. A horse whinnied in fright before the rider drew it back under control. Morrigan held her staff firm to the ground, one hand curling around her sore torso as she cleared her eyes and managed her pain, and looked up at those she’d landed amidst.

“Lady Morrigan,” Warden Sigrun spoke to her first, lacking her usual chipper attitude. Next to her was a human woman clad in Grey Warden silver and blue, her twisted blonde hair tangled in a braid hanging over her shoulder: Warden Hestel. The man on the horse was dressed as a Fereldan Lord, the gold chains of an Arl twisted around his shoulder. He was staring at her with no small sense of fear, and Morrigan inclined her head to the frightened man:

“Arl Bryland.” She uttered, the taste of blood heavy on her tongue as she regarded the Wardens. Most of the soldiers behind Sigrun and Hestel were archers and bowmen, cross-bows and slings abounding. There were no Amaranthine Militia and their Captain Renth was missing, and these were not all of the Wardens Morrigan had seen yesterday. “Where is your Commander?”

“They’d just taken the courtyard when it all went… quiet.” Sigrun reported to her, and Morrigan heard more fussing from the horse before the Arl landed soundly on his feet.

“Madame,” the Arl spoke briskly, mastering his fear. “Who, or _what_ , are you?”

“She’s Lady Morrigan of Vigil’s Keep,” Sigrun jumped to explain, allowing Morrigan time to take a deeper breath to brace herself rather than waste it on explanation. “And she’s the reason this castle is so beaten up.”

The Lord’s fear returned but Soren had convinced his ally to use sense yesterday, so she was willing to pay him a simple benefit and suggest that he was not fool enough to try anything with her. This left her able, with Warden Hestel offering an arm for Morrigan to rest on, to observe what in creation was going on.

Between the whispers of the well and her own simple sense of the Veil wafting between worlds, Morrigan understood the blackened shreds of magic filtering through the air, the clouded, muffled oppression of energies swirling out of sorts and lacking sense. Castle Redcliffe was engulfed in pale mist weeping off its burning stones and fractured towers, the entire complex wreathed in grey fog. The magic was not subtle, but it was difficult for mundane eyes to suss out what was going on.

“The Veil has torn,” she explained simply. “How long ago did the fighting fall quiet?”

“Nearing an hour now,” Warden Hestel offered. “All of the Silver Order and most of the Grey Wardens with Commander Surana were inside the walls when it happened.” The _fool_.

“Then they are all dead or have been swept up into the Fade.” Morrigan pronounced, making herself stand straight and shaking off the other woman’s aid. “Your Commander has dealt with such matters before and escaped unharmed, and he is not without support this time either. No doubt there are demons at work, and since I see and hear none of them terrorizing the castle as was the case with the Breach or its rifts, one must assume they are otherwise occupied.”

“Meaning?” Bryland asked.

“Meaning your men should fortify themselves, your Grace.” She said, turning a serious look to him. “Should the soldiers already in the Fade be overwhelmed, demons will issue forth from the shredded Veil and flood into the village as they once did thirteen years ago. Unless the Lady Inquisitor should arrive presently with her anchor to seal this mess, we shall have to trust in the Warden Commander to fix the problem from the other side.” Something he would no doubt accomplish because, again: Soren had dealt with these matters before.

“Then we shall wait here until something changes,” Arl Bryland agreed, proving his superior sense as he raised a hand and brought forward one of his commanders. He spoke sensible, brisk orders to the man and waved him off, horns and orders beginning to fly and reorganize the men. “And for yourself, Madame? You do not seem well. Rest and a hot meal can be swiftly provided for you behind the lines.”

“That is most gracious of you, Arl Bryland, but unnecessary.” Morrigan allowed herself to say, eyes watching the billowing mists closely, fingers running down the grain of her dark wooden staff. “I am well enough for what must be done.” Her ring could tell her nothing of Soren’s mind, and Kieran’s fear was whimpering over the hinterlands to her after Morrigan’s quick and cryptic departure from his side. If his father was to survive this then Morrigan had to worry less about whatever demons he was bound to come across, and more about the path he would have to take to return home.

“My Lady,” Bryland said as Morrigan took a step forward. “You cannot expect me to allow my ally’s mistress to walk into a nest of demons.”

“My Lord.” She walked on. “There is no expectation placed upon you at all, for there is no authority in place to bar my way. Do not take my actions as signs of overbearing affection for the Arl of Amaranthine: but my great vexation for the state of the Veil between worlds.”

“Lady Morrigan-”

“Arl Bryland, with all due respect, sir,” Warden Sigrun piped up at last. “She can turn into a _dragon_. I mean, I’m pretty sure she can handle herself.” Very good, Warden, very good.

Even if the Arl decided he knew more about the Veil than Morrigan, whomever he sent after her as the road turned to the debris-laden bricks of the bridge would feel the demon’s influences before catching her. She felt the conscious touch against her mind and rebuked it shrewdly. The mists tried to grasp and confound her, but the whispers from the Well and their centuries of knowledge rebuffed them. She did not desire to pass through the tattered Veil and walk into the realm of dreams, she wanted to stay firmly on this level of existence and navigate carefully across the char marks and broken masonry. She came upon a fallen soldier and knew him to still be breathing, carrying on slowly and carefully until the way back was obscured by mist and wind.

It reminded her of the Crossroads, the in-between realm of the Eluvian’s crumbled highway. The winter sun did not penetrate the grey mists, the frayed threads of magic ghosting like cob-webs on eddies unfelt on both sides of the barrier. She felt the threads like hooks and eyes that could be looped back together if only one was patient and had the focus for such delicate work, but her purpose at present was not to mend the breach.

Her staff helped her pick a path across the bodies. Some were clearly dead with their blood spilling freely from deep wounds, most of them wearing Redcliffe’s colours and thus sparking no regret in her. Their Lord had conspired to torment and kidnap her son, they deserved their deaths for having followed him. The Wardens she was more sympathetic towards, and pleased when she heard their shallow breaths, saw their arms and armour undamaged from the quieted melee. She stepped over the shield of an Amaranthine knight and again paused a moment to ensure she was still alive, her spirit held in rapture by the consciousness permeating the thick air.

_You will never find him._

The demon’s presence was very strong, but distinctly on the other side of the fragmented barrier. As she walked, Morrigan began to hear the voices of the people scattered at her feet, and she was surprised by how truly self-aware they seemed to be.

 _‘You there!’_ One cried, the sound almost familiar. _‘Fortify that line! Make sure your shields overlap! Keep ready!’_

_‘We need a medic over here! Someone get him to calm down.’_

_‘Warden-!’_

Yes, she could hear them, and at moments thought she could all but see them. Shades and whispers of real minds running about in the Fade, trying to muster their defenses it seemed. Shields and bows, commanding officers giving orders and making gestures in their evanescent ways. Good, she was pleased to hear them so active and ready on the other side. The battle had not been lost, merely shifted.

Morrigan walked on, the great steps of Castle Redcliffe slowly forming from the grey. Here there was a break in the slumped bodies, though the last of them looked distinctly like men and women of Amaranthine had stood shoulder to shoulder and then dropped to the ground in a heap. She picked her way across their slumbering forms and found the two most interesting to her. A pair of elves, both mages, and an unfortunate amount of blood…

_They are dead!_

Hush, Fear.

The Inquisitor’s clansman had toppled flat on his back, his tunic and Dalish trappings flapped down between his legs, ironbark staff slung over his chest. He was breathing but his eyes were half-open and sightless, lips parted and dry with his blonde hair filthy from the dust and mud he’d fallen in. His fingers were bloody but he seemed uninjured, and he had collapsed not far from his Commander.

Soren was twisted strangely on the ground and it was from him that the thick blood issued forth. He had been looking back towards his line and had fallen on his face, one arm stretched out ahead of him, the other trapped under his body. His shield was still on his back and his sword was tangled between his knees, his staff’s bloodstone head quiet in the dirt where it had dropped next to him. There _was_ a great deal of blood and it had been pooling slowly as he laid there, thick and dark in the Fade’s light. Morrigan pressed the end of her staff into the ground and slid down slowly to her knees next to him, too certain of his strength to fret.

He had been clutching a wound in his gut when he fell, his gauntlet swollen with blood and fingers curled uselessly just past his side. This worried her, especially since he had been this way for a very long time. She set aside her staff and felt under the weight of him, relieved that it was a small tear in his armour, like an arrow-head, and not a massive rip across his body that would have killed him. It was in an unfortunate place because the different loops and pieces of the gut were close together and difficult to knit properly with magic, but Morrigan gathered a web of cleansing power in her hand and slipped it under him, willing it to…

“But of course…” The Veil was torn, the Fade and their world meshing in fluid, chaotic patterns. When Morrigan cast her spell it went warm against her hand instead of cool into his flesh, the energy scattering uselessly as light that danced across his armour instead of healing the damaging wound as it slowly continued to bleed. “Very well then, continue to be difficult.”

She had her own supplies but Soren’s were right here within easy reach at his belt. He also carried more of them and a wider variety given his skills as a medic and healer. Morrigan kept one hand pressed firmly to his wounded side and used the other to undo the hook and buckle on one of the large cases slung through his belts, finding the rolls of gauze and padded linen bandages from his kit with only a bit of searching. She pulled the lot out, unconcerned with putting the rest back. His shield she had to shove off the hook on his armour when it made it too difficult to roll him onto his back- a very uncomfortable position to lay in when wearing armour but that was his own fault for falling unconscious. He was breathing, and bleeding, and his heart was still beating as she padded the wound and bound it. Elfroot could wait until he was awake and could complain about his aches. Her hands did not shake enough when tying the bandages off to make her pause. That she stroked his face before coaxing a restorative red potion past his slack lips was hardly worth mentioning. She did not remove his helmet, the gouges in the silverite spoke highly enough of its value in battle.

She gave him water from her own waterskin after the potion, and then because she found three of them still unopened, she removed two of his vials of lyrium. The glowing substance made the Fade tug and pull around her, and Soren’s face quivered briefly with a grimace, fingers curling when the unpleasant substance was tipped down his throat. His heart was beating very hard with the dose and he was bleeding through the wrap over his torso, but he would need his strength and his magic so there was no use in heeding his complaints.

The other vial she took to Soren’s attending mage. Lavellan was also breathing meaning he was also very much alive and no doubt active in the Fade. She did not pay him nearly as much care of course but she still made sure he swallowed the lyrium down without choking on it. Good enough.

She was ready to either press forward to see what could be found in this place or retreat back to the army when she heard it. A wail, a _scream_. It echoed and it shook and it went on _endlessly_ in the blue darkness. It was answered by a second sound Morrigan appreciated even less than the scream. Not the filtering voices of the ghostly wardens or the whispers of the demon: this was far, far more real to her. It grated, scraped, and then began to move.

There were many dead bodies in this place, soldiers struck down and even the unfortunate few who had succumbed to wounds just like their commander had been in danger of doing. She was doubtful that her mere presence had set the corpses and their newly departed spirits off, the scream was certainly to blame instead, but as she stood and slowly turned to examine the field…

No, up ahead. She looked across the sweeping stairs of Redcliffe castle and saw nothing, but she heard it again and focused: metal and leather dragging over stone. The scrape of tempered steel. Her body was sore and her magic would not help her here, but Morrigan reclaimed her spot next to where Soren had fallen and stood with her staff’s end resting in the shallow red pool of his blood. The reminder was painful and it angered her, her irritation drowning out the cloying fingers of the demon reaching for her.

The demon kept telling her that Soren was going to die. She kept telling it to shut up.

“ _I will…_ ” A haggard, breathless voice wheezed in the grey, a figure rising up through the mist and descending the steps. It lugged itself along, shoulders stooped, figure bloody, armour scored and blackened in long bars. “ _Protect them…”_ Hmph.

“You are dead, old man.” She called out simply as the corpse lumbered down another step, and another, holding its sword with the point nearly to the ground and its shield hanging by the wrist. “You will protect no one; you have failed them utterly.”

Arl Eamon Guerrin’s broken body reached the bottom of his fallen keep’s steps and staggered forward. Morrigan rolled her eyes with a scoff and levelled her staff at him: she would try.

The voices in the Fade _howled_ in fright and it snapped her concentration, making her wince and step back. The forks of her lightning slipped the wrong way through the veil and struck through the Fade, ignoring the shambling corpse as it hobbled closer still. His grey beard and pale face had not yet rotted away, possessed of will but no life as it staggered, broke into a feeble run and-

 _“No!_ ” She shouted, stepping straight across Soren’s body and twisting her staff with both hands, knocking away the lunging strike aimed to run through the fallen mage. The parry took a large chunk out of the wood but it worked. The sword bit the dirt and Morrigan dropped the head of her staff to slam on the corpse’s skull, the blow striking poorly across his domed helmet and allowing him to escape. “Foul thing- you’ve already lost!”

Eamon circled and then struck out at her with its shield, her feet stepping back and Morrigan swung again with her staff when the corpse tried to stab down through Soren instead of attacking _her_. It didn’t care about her, she wasn’t the enemy Eamon Guerrin had died fighting and neither his corpse nor his spirit gave a damn about killing _her_. The sword and staff met under the dawnstone foci clutched by the top of the staff, the blade biting deep again and causing a long split in the weapon when she failed to wrench the sword away. It was a corpse not long enough dead to be weak and flimsy, and when she struck out quickly with one end of the staff and then the other she felt the bolts peel and spiral off dizzily through the air, their paths confounded by the Fade.

“Stay _away_ from him!” She hissed, reaching one hand out to rip its spirit from its cold flesh and fighting the Fade _every step of the way-!_

She felt her magic reach like a claw and slide _through_ the folds of the veil, striking a mind fresh and living and focused on escaping from this _prison_ and rejoining the _Wardens_. The spirit screamed and Morrigan dropped the spell with a shrill curse, the wrong target released from the painful bind so she could put her hand back on her staff and swing it out hard looking for the corpse’s hands. She found Eamon’s shield and she struck again, and again, and _again_. He swung out at her finally and his sword chopped again at the head of the staff, striking opposite the side of its previous bite, the black wood splintering with a dangerous crunch. She tried to strike flames down through the crystal into his helmet with a direct blow and felt the Fade swallow the gout with another flurry of panicked voices on the other side of the shredded curtain.

_You will fail and he will die-_

“Be silent!” The demon holding the veil wide open was _mocking_ her!

_Already I hold his heart in my palm and soon his enemy will take his head._

“Foul beast, he will burn you from the inside _out!_ ” She yelled, eyes closed against the voice and a horrible pain crashed across her back and shoulder. She was struck hard with the face of a shield and hit the bloody ground, lungs crushed by the blow and vision star-struck. Her hands scraped through the blood and dirt for something solid, panic nipping at her heels as she turned.

“ _For House Guerrin…_ ”

No scream, no yelling: just her feet kicking mad at the ground and her head leading around the edge of the shield so the rest of her weight could lean and throw itself against the corpse’s body. She tackled him down as hard as she could and heard the sword’s deadly point drop over silverite plate, the corpse dropping with a half-hearted grunt under her.

 _“Monster! Beast! Coward!”_ Morrigan howled. She ripped back his helmet and she scratched at his cheeks, she tore at his beard, she bashed her elbow down on his throat. His broken hands fought with her and she found the thick Alamarri blade at his belt, ripping it free from under her own leg and hacking at his arms. She slashed through the weak underside of his armour and hacked at the tendons of his elbow, stabbed down at the seams of his red armour. Black, dead blood welled up and she stabbed through his cheek, down his open mouth, across his sightless eyes. He kicked and she stabbed his chest again, plunged the blade into his shoulder so his sword arm fell, used both hands to bear own and shove the blade between chainmail links and leather plates and the rancid blood welled up and squeezed out and gurgled. It schlepped cold and thick over her hands, across her thighs, up her arms.

When the corpse stopped moving, when it finally _died_ _again_ with its mangled head and ruined chest, she backed off of it. She could not stand for her shaking legs and she could barely breathe for the fear choking her, the demon’s fingers following her like smoke trying to invade through her mouth, her nose, her eyes. All she saw was blood and rotted flesh, a sword held firm over her love to drop through his throat and kill him in his sleep. She scrambled from Eamon Guerrin’s corpse and her eyes searched blindly for silverite gauntlets and scarred hands and blue eyes and a calm mind with cold reasons and hard walls and overbearing will and calculated skill and where was he _where was he…_

She found his hand and hers scrambled up him. There was no sword buried in his throat and his face was whole, streaks of his own blood spread across his cheeks where her hands had touched him. On his chevron breastplate spread across his chest a nick had been gouged into the griffon’s wing, the sword responsible resting with its hilt in the pool of his blood and its point raised over his fallen body. She slapped the blade away and ran her bloody palm over the gouge in the armour, making sure it was the only mark; that his heart was still beating behind it. And it was. He was _alive_ …

“Do not die here,” she dropped her face to his breastplate, fingers wrapped over the top of the chevron and clutching it hard. “You shall not leave me like this. Our son is safe and you _will_ see him again.” And she stayed like that, over him, not because of her weeping but because she chose not to leave him.

_He will die and his corpse will squeeze the life from your slender throat…_

“You are insufferable and will die for your insults,” she whispered back at the demon. Her hand sought out the black-blooded Alamarri blade, a great tooth of beaten steel as wide at the base as her palm when curled into a fist. It was a brutish thing but marginally more useful than her splintered and damaged staff.

_He will beg and writhe when he watches my minions have their way with you._

”You do not know him half as well as your visions claim.” Her love did not _beg_.

_A son without his parents, the wilful plaything of a cruel goddess…_

Morrigan held the blade close to her, kept her head low to her lover’s sleeping chest, and _waited._

* * *

 

“Do you think the Hero of Ferelden will have time and patience to hear memories of a mortal youth?”

“Are you still talking about Jylan?” Connor asked, but he and the other two Wardens were quick on the Spirit’s heels, Loyalty darting ahead of them and swinging a ball of multi-coloured fire from hand to hand: an old pass-time of the elven apprentice.

“I speak of one who is my friend.” Is? If it was Jylan then Loyalty meant _was._ “So this is the cruelty of mortals?” Connor felt the insult spike through him but refused to engage any further. He was not _cruel_ to Jylan!

They kept on a path that ascended through the keep, the large bricks and red carpets slowly melding to blue stone, grey iron, and the pointed arches of… the Circle of Magi?

“Has Surana been this way?” Lavellan asked, but was ignored by their guide. Connor kept track of Loyalty where the face of his friend would wait patiently for them to catch up and then dart off at a mad pace. If he hadn’t been in the company of two other mages and felt Loyalty’s essence himself then Connor would have been scared that it was really a demon trying to trick them.

“Who else could leave this trail?” Connor asked, filling the spirit’s silence. Fire marks against the walls, the distinct chill of the tower air, and the constant slope of the corridor as it began to slowly turn and curl in on itself in a spiral. Neither Sephri nor Lavellan had lived in the Fereldan Circle: the only person aside from Connor who knew the insides like this was the Warden Commander.

“He broke free before the nightmare could contain him,” Loyalty announced in a sing-song voice, jumping atop one of the benches in the hall and walking along it. When the corridor melded seamlessly into a classroom the Spirit didn’t hesitate to scramble up onto the first narrow desk and leap-frog across the room from one to the other. Maker, Jylan had received _so many_ scoldings and beatings for doing that when they were kids. “He commands loyalty based on proven strength and a proud inability to yield.”

“That sounds like him.” Sephri commented to herself.

The classroom became the apprentice dorms and here the memories of a fight were fresh. Beds had been smashed to pieces, the burn of smoke still hanging in the air from the incinerated blankets. Loyalty jumped across a skid of what looked like lamp-oil and performed that same stupid trick Jylan often had with spilled mop water: he turned it to ice under his heels, skating here and there in wide loops with the frost hidden under the hem of his robe.

Come to think of it, if Jylan had been speaking to spirits as an Apprentice then perhaps he hadn’t been so hopeless with matters of the Fade. And, honestly, the control needed to turn water to ice and back again for the sake of a childish and troublesome _game…_ Nevermind. That was a question for _later_ , or in his case: never.

Surana had fought his way through these rooms. He’d been quite angry about the next one too because Connor had only wound up on that stool in that cell _one time_. He couldn’t remember what exactly he’d done to warrant it, but the punishment had been to sit in the middle of the cold cell on that three-legged stool, in the dark, and stay there until prayer the next morning. He hadn’t been beaten or stripped, but that had certainly been done to other apprentices when the need arose.

The stool was a few burnt legs of wood and the metal bars blasted physically outward. The demon had tried to give Surana an apprentice’s punishment and been in _no uncertain terms_ corrected for it.

“Did the demon or the Commander build this place?” Lavellan asked and Connor knew the question was for him this time. “It doesn’t feel as… frightening, as Redcliffe Castle.”

“Surana was well respected in our Circle, so I’d say it was probably him,” Connor explained easily. “He was the First Enchanter’s apprentice, a model of Templar obedience, a strict Andrastian, talented in his lessons, and ruthlessly loyal to the Circle and its Laws.”

“Maker, I hated his type at Starkhaven,” Sephri complained. “And he is _not_ a strict Andrastian: he’s never in the Vigil’s Chantry.”

“I’m just telling you what they told us.” Connor answered, following Jylan’s ghost through the winding corridors of cold blue stone. “I was sent to Kinloch Hold only a year and some months after he left. I won’t go ahead and claim there was any love or affection, but the only words I ever heard against him were his arrogance.” Which, if Connor was going to be completely and utterly honest with himself: was a fair evaluation. Both the arrogance and the reasons for it made sense.

“I’m still struggling with the Templar- _Falon’din’s Shadow…!_ ” Mahanon interrupted himself and Connor staggered when they reached the next level because he _gagged_.

The stink of rotten, burned corpses and rank blood swarmed the air, the blue stone floor slick with blood and bodily fluids. The walls were covered in porous pink _sacks_ of flesh that immediately reminded Connor of the horrors to be found in the Deep Roads. It reinforced the strength and feel of his armour but also made him walk slowly now, his staff held cautiously beside him.

People- mages Connor didn’t know were strewn on the floor of the long hall. They’d died fighting against Surana because there were too many burns and blackened wounds for memories of Templars. An old woman was the clearest of them, near the end of the passage. Her white hair was spun in a tight bun behind her head, a battlemage’s red robe holding her elderly body, several books scattered about her. A much younger man with dark hair and a thin brown beard was literally speared to the wall with a familiar gold and dawnstone staff Surana had left rammed through him, his eyes sightless and arms burnt away, his green enchanter’s robe splattered with blood. The others were less distinct.

Loyalty was waiting at the far edge of this room by a closed door, and held up a hand for them with a bothered look on Jylan’s face.

“The next demon he bound but did not kill,” the spirit told them simply. Connor found this bizarre.

“He’s cut a blood-splattered path through the entire nightmare- why spare this one?” He asked.

“His meaning is unclear, but I believe Duty forbade it,” was the answer, Jylan’s green eyes growing vacant for a moment before remembering their sparkle. “Yes, it was Duty’s interference.”

“Will Duty be angry if we finish the job?” Sephri seemed quite ready for this and Connor agreed with her.

“It is a demon of regret and guilt, not terror like most of the others.” Loyalty explained, and it sounded curious as it spoke with the other spirit that was so much further ahead than they were. “Duty will not answer, it is too busy, but we are coming closer now.”

“On your order, Corporal.” Lavellan told him and Connor nodded. They were as ready as they would ever be, and the door opened with little more than a hand-wave.

“ _You can’t outrun me forever!”_ A man’s voice shouted, young and reedy with a weak quibble running through it. “ _One day, Soren! One day you’ll have to face me!_ ”

Connor walked forward into _white_. Pure brilliance flooded his awareness before finally he could make sense of it, looking around in awe at the delicate lattice of twisted and tied off power that filled the air. Bars and chains and walls and shackles, a cage and lock-box of twisted pieces that moved and breathed like a living thing, swarming around the voice and sealing it tightly.

“ _You did this to me!_ ” The man shouted, and his voice was _familiar?_ “ _You cursed me!_ ” Connor extended his hand out carefully towards the magic, in awe and now a little put off the idea of releasing and killing the demon. Surana had not made this web just to have it fall apart with a thought. “ _For your fucking pride! You threw me to the Templars for your own selfish gain you son of a bitch!”_ He knew that voice…

Connor looked to Lavellan and Sephri, sensing their unease for a moment until they both looked at _him_ and it vanished? Well, if they thought this was the right thing to do and it would stop one of Surana’s literal demons from coming after them later, then alright. He swung his staff and brought the hooked blade out, finding a place in the twisting spell marks to hook it, and then _ripped_ down through it. He had to repeat the motion several more times until the prison collapsed.

“ _This is your **fault!**_ ” The Blood Mage Jowan screamed and Connor felt pure terror _shock_ through him so hard he dropped his staff. He just- he dropped it. It fell from his hands and he wasn’t holding it and he backed away and-

“ _Your magic murdered the people of Redcliffe-!”_ The demon howled, lunging at him with clawed hands that ripped at his armour, tore through his tunic. The face of the blood mage who’d poisoned his father and let Connor fall into a demon’s hands was clawing through his body and he did not stop it. “ _Your family was ruined! Your father disgraced! Your mother reviled! Every fight between the Hero and House Guerrin stemmed from your mistakes and your abuses! This war is **your fault!**_ ”

He was too stunned to fight back, too scared to move when Mahanon’s blazing staff slammed through the creature’s face, when Sephri’s lightning shattered its body, when Loyalty formed a shield of fortified magic over Connor’s body and took away the pain he should have felt. He stayed there on the ground, knocked down on his back, and watched the battle numbly. How could this…? Why would Commander Surana _know_ the Blood Mage well enough to-? For a demon of _guilt-?_

The monstrosity died screaming under the fury of Lavellan and Sephri. The Fade was quiet and Connor could not move. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know _why_ …

“Guerrin!” The two mages rushed to him and he realized the Fade had told him he was bleeding- bleeding _very badly_. He couldn’t feel the pain and his emotions were a riot from the demon, so he laid back when Sephri urged him to and he felt Mahanon’s magic flare between his hands and soak into him. The mage told him his ribs reformed and Connor agreed. His muscles and flesh roped back together and Connor agreed. His skin was put back in order, whole and fine, and he agreed. His armour could not be healed but Connor quietly nodded when Sephri asked him if he was alright. He didn’t know if he believed it as surely now as he had before, but he agreed just the same.

“Thank you- both of you.” He murmured as they helped him stand. Loyalty was kicking through the ashes of the vanquished demon. “I would have died against it, I’m certain.”

“ _No._ ” Lavellan told him _so soundly_ that Connor amended his own honest conviction. “It was not powerful, merely crafty. We should not have relied so much on you. That you were injured was our fault.”

“Lavellan’s right.” Sephri supported him immediately and she told Connor to believe her _so much so_ that he did. “As soon as it focused on you we should have acted, not just stood there waiting.”

“I- then I thank you for realizing your mistakes.” He said, not sure how the words formed so smoothly but at least the other mages accepted them. “Please pay more attention in the next room.”

“Yes, sir.” Sephri deferred to him? She’d been doing it all along but Connor only now realized how novel that was.

“We won’t make the same mistake again, Corporal.” Lavellan agreed and again, it was so strange.

“Don’t you out-rank me?” Connor finally asked, blinking strangely at him because he was… so confused. Nearly dying could do that to someone.

“Not in the Grey Wardens,” the elf told him. “I don’t intend to remain an Ensign, but we need to get out of here before anyone can be promoted further.”

“I agree,” Connor nodded. “We should go. Loyalty?” Jylan looked at him from the pile of ashes, his robe stained with them now. It was so _typical_ of him at that age too- a demon’s ashes, of course he would. “What’s in the next room?”

“Duty,” the spirit told them brightly. Oh, was that all?

“We’ve caught up?” While that was good it was certainly… a surprise. Connor conjured his staff again, silverite and serpentstone and a hooked staff-blade on the end.

“You must be quiet.” Loyalty warned them, trotting away from the mess of ashes and reaching for a door hovering at the far side of what was now a perpetually black room. “Pride is a powerful demon, and this one does not answer to the Nightmare: it came for Duty’s companion.” The way back to Kinloch Hold was behind them, and now this door was here to lead them on. Loyalty took the handle and glanced back at them, covering its mouth with one finger and bidding the mages be quiet.

The door opened and rather than walk through, the four of them were _drawn_ forward- or even better, the door moved over them. Connor was immersed in blackness so thick he couldn’t visualize himself, Loyalty’s presence holding around him firmly like a blanket, binding him close to what felt like Sephri and Mahanon. The spirit smothered them, quieted them, and Connor felt calm.

Sight was the dominant sense in the Fade. Minds believed what they could see and thoughts could manifest as real things in the dream realm. Here Connor’s sight was blacked out and taken from him, not even the cursory awareness of his nose or his hair was present now. Instead his other senses were catered to.

He could smell blood. Thick, rich, coppery and wet. He could hear liquid dripping, slowly, from many places. There was the rolling sound of liquid filtering, liquid that smelled like water because it flowed too thin and easily to be anything else. It was swirling, a large, slow, steady pool of water spinning around a central focus.

The water was cold, and if Connor and the others fell in it then they would drown.

“I do not need your help.”

Commander Surana’s voice-

“I do not offer help; I seek what is mine.”

-and that was… also the Commander’s voice.

“I grow tired of this game.”

“And yet you do not retire from the field.”

“I yield to no one, not even a reflection of myself.”

“But it _is_ yourself you see, and it is the most compelling truth of your existence: it is the most desirable of all your efforts.”

“There is no need for me to desire what is already mine. If it is truth, and it is mine, then I do not strive to achieve it.”

“And yet it is reflected back at you, again, and again, because it is not yours by title but yours by _right_.”

“I choose not to exercise that right.”

“ _Why not?_ ”

And then Connor could see. He felt it resonate first through the warmth wrapped around him and shielding him above the water and then he saw it clearly. Loyalty reached out to Duty, and Duty responded with a watery echo of light enrobing the Warden Commander.

Surana stood in a golden mage robe cut and folded through his silverite armour. His greaves and gauntlets and pauldrons and breastplate glittering, his tassets and sword and shield all strongly rendered in the darkness. He carried no staff and his helmet was missing. His short, fair blonde hair was bright and airy around his face and down his neck. His scarred ear was out of sight, the end nipped off in some story Connor had never heard, his stern blue eyes facing upward at something, jaw clenched and will focused.

Duty was protecting him, but the Commander was waist-deep in the water surrounding them, and it was _cold_.

There was frost collecting across his waist, spider-veins of it creeping around his arms, soaking his tunic and Connor could feel the cold, _the cold, the cold…_ Duty was burning brightest around the Commander’s chest, but his feet and legs had been submerged the longest and it was _cold_. His arms to his elbows were deep in the water and it was _cold_. He stared up with determination in the darkness where his own voice was coming back to him, and with every breath he breathed Surana formed a cloud of mist in front of him, and it was _cold_.

Connor wanted to _help_ and that wish fortified Loyalty. The spirit had not let the three of them touch the water, and it was trying very _quietly_ to reach out to Duty without alerting the demon.

“Why _not?_ ” Pride repeated in Surana’s voice, and the Commander locked his jaw a bit tighter before answering.

“Because I choose _not to_ -” He _dropped_.

Surana seized and then he dropped deeper in the water, the current catching over his breastplate and swimming up through his pauldrons, lapping across the face of his shield. Connor realized that there was nothing _under_ the Commander, he was keeping himself rock steady in the endless pool and was actively fighting the demon for every _inch_ of his body, trying to keep himself afloat. Duty flared in distress and concentrated as burning glow around Surana’s chest, the spirit submerged now and struggling desperately against the cold. Surana had to help the spirit in order to keep it and its warmth around him, because without it the demon and the Archmage both knew that he would _drown_.

“Enough of this, Pride,” the Commander said, his voice unshaken by the imminent danger. “We’ve done this before: you won’t kill me and I won’t relent. Let this end for I have business with the Nightmare.”

“Your business is with _me_.”

“Since when are you beholden to Fear of all things?” Surana goaded from his perilous position in the water. “Pride, wrought low by an emotion even basic animals can feel? Self-assurance, confidence, _arrogance_ , waylaid by terror and jittery nerves?”

“Your time draws to an end, my friend. You will see my path to greatness and you will rise to the occasion, or _he_ will crush you into oblivion.”

“The only thing effecting my time is you wasting it, Pride.” Surana rebuked his own voice, the ice crawling up across his shoulders and the top of his chest, the water lapping higher until the entire chevron was swallowed. “Watching you play guard dog to the Nightmare, it’s pathetic! To think that my own demon out of all creation would be brought so low by so basic a minion of the Fade. Crushed by him? By a _Nightmare?_ Is that fear I sense in you, Pride? Are you no more in control of this place than the maggots I struck down to get to you?”

Like darts the Warden Commander’s words struck Pride and revealed it. The demon had taken his voice and showed its strength by wearing his face now too. Commander Surana in the water looked up to Archmage Surana robed in gold and standing atop the bubbling black currents of the trap.

No, not Archmage: Grand Enchanter. The thick gold and fine furs of the robe could belong to no other rank. He was Grand Enchanter of the College of Enchanters, First Mage of the White Chantry, and more. His staff was an Archon’s, his belt that of a Tevinter Magister: not just the strongest mage in the south, but the Ruler of Tevinter. Pride wrought Surana as the strongest mage in _Thedas._ And it did not stop there.

That was the sword of the First Warden, the supreme commander of the Grey Wardens. He wore six rings of the six Arlings of Ferelden. Resting at his feet were carved golden halla horns and a great horn: symbols of the Dalish and their lost homeland, a homeland he had restored not because he desired the freedom, but the _prestige_ of leading the _El’vhen_ with one hand and the _Tevenes_ with the other.

Grand Enchanter Surana, Magister Surana, Archon Surana, First Warden Surana, Arl of Arls Surana, Restorer of the Dales and Scourge of Orlais Surana, King of all Kinds Surana, Unifier and Ruler of all Thedas.

“You _bore me_ , Pride.” And the Commander didn’t hesitate to spit in his mirror’s face.

“I speak of no feeble Nightmare, Scion of _Elvhenan_ -”

“ _Must_ it always come back to my ears?”

“ _Yes, it must!_ ” Pride roared back at him, slamming the end of the Archon’s staff on the surface of the water and sinking Surana down to cover his mouth, Duty flailing silently and screamed without voice as the spirit struggled. “You have been _noted_ by the _Pride of Pride_ ; he who would upset all that _is_ set; he who strives to undo all that been done; and he has _seen you_. He _watches_ , he _waits_ , and when he sees you and all that I have provided for you, he will take you as his humble ally, or he will strike you down as a prideful foe.”

Surana could not speak with his mouth below the water and the ice peeling up his face, freezing his hair and plugging his ears, but the hateful look in his eyes spoke for him and his will resonated loudly: Pride had given him nothing he had not earned himself. His every deed had been accomplished without the demon’s knowledge or power.

“ _Accomplished from sheer spite!_ ” Pride roared down at him. “Your every deed carried out to _spite_ my offers! To justify your refusal! You cannot _spite_ your way out of this!”

Surana dropped past his nose, his eyes closing automatically when the water splashed and he actively struggled to blink the ice away before it could form.

Maker, Loyalty, how long were they going to wait? He was _drowning!_

_We wait for Duty._

Duty was _dying_ , they-!

Surana cried out and plunged under the water, the trap freezing solid and turning thick and ghostly white. Loyalty dropped them and Pride turned with ice ripping down its arm at the intruding mages. Connor’s will was torn between the demon and the _Commander_ -

Mahanon’s barrier stopped the eruption of ice from spearing through them, Connor dashing to his right to open up space as the ice over Surana buckled: he wasn’t dead. Lightning cracked off Sephri’s staff and Connor hurled several fast bolts off his staff, following his own rhythm before smashing the end of it down on the ice with his will forcing the frozen water to split and rip apart.

He was met with a storm of crimson fire gushing up through the cracks and jumped back from it, pulling his staff around and casting a glyph of warding under Lavellan’s feet. Sephri met Pride’s ice with her own fire and Lavellan’s eyes were white with magic that caused Pride’s draping robe and stolen face to boil and bubble away. The demon roared at them and shed its covering. Its body was ribbed with violet flesh and too many eyes on a broad head, horns ripping back from its brow and back, heavy hands lined with too many fingers ending in sharp black claws.

Loyalty danced down between the jets of fire and a metal-plated hand burst up from the splitting ice. Connor grabbed it and felt no heat from the flames, pulling the Warden Commander free until he could stand on the ice with his fire still swirling red and furious around him. Connor could hardly see him through the flames but knew he was acknowledged by the mage within them. Surana turned from him to face Pride across the frozen darkness, flung his arms out wide and unleashed a horrible noise through the Fade.

His flames _leapt_ from his form and became a knight of charging steel, sword and shield raised strong as a Spirit if Duty wreathed in brilliant mage-fire sprinted into battle. Pride saw Duty charge and screamed at it in outrage, batting away Sephri’s lance of ice and staggering out of range from Lavellan’s barrage of raw spiritual light. Pride stepped away and with a furious bellow the demon _folded_ in on itself and the Fade _twisted_ in a way Connor had not seen before. He felt the Nightmare around them shift and struggle before with a great _crack_ \- Pride was gone?

“It- It escaped!” Connor gasped, the ice vanishing, the water draining, the blue stones of Kinloch Hold forming only to vanish again and replace themselves with the muted grey and tattered drapes of Redcliffe Castle. “The Tower was not your conjuring? Sir? Commander-?”

“ _Agh_ …” Commander Surana slipped to one knee and Connor dropped with him. The Archmage was soaking wet and bowed his head, eyes closed with one hand around his gut, red blood darkly spreading over his silverite. Connor’s alarm was paired with a sudden brilliance from Lavellan, who was quickly coming over to them with Sephri.

“Commander, your wound didn’t heal-?” Lavellan spouted, but from his low position Surana didn’t answer him. Connor spun a web of healing magic between his hands and the Commander straightened up enough to permit the spell to soak into him. It was not a large wound but it was deep enough to score his insides, Surana’s awareness meeting his and telling him that the wound was from the battle beyond the Fade. Connor could not heal it properly, but he could prop up the Commander’s will and make it close and stop hurting for now. The rest of what was paining him was simple fatigue from the fighting and the Pride Demon.

“Pride always finds a way to escape,” Surana announced loudly. Without help or visible effort he smoothly pushed himself up to his feet, eyes still closed as he focused himself in the Fade. “And no, I did not conjure the Circle. The Nightmare misunderstood what it gleaned from me and wasted its strength on the transformation all by itself.”

_You are a friend of Kindness and Loyalty._

Connor yelped uncontrollably when _something_ surged through him. It came warmly and suddenly, flowing from his back through to his front and warping the whole of him before emerging on front of him as the flaming knight from before. It continued walking away from Connor until it enveloped Surana in its brilliant light, settling from flaming crimson down to a soft and chilly blue that resonated with the Commander’s now open eyes. Connor could no longer see the spirit after that, but he felt the knight take a fist to its chest.

_I am Duty, companion and guide to the Consort of the Inheritor._

“The _what?_ ” Connor asked.

“An odd title I’ve picked up in the Fade.” Surana told him, and then regarded Mahanon. “I do not fault you for being unable to close the wound in time, Warden. I’m more concerned with getting all of our people out of here in one piece.” And, with that exact thought in mind, the Commander was once again looking at Connor. “It’s good to have you with us again, Warden Guerrin.”

“I-” His breath caught, an odd thing in the Fade. “Thank you, sir.”

“Where is Warden Velanna?”

“With the rest of the Grey Wardens trying to free everyone the Nightmare captured,” Connor reported. “I don’t think we’re very far from the heart of the Nightmare’s realm now.”

“Certainly not,” Surana agreed, but he was watching Connor very closely, reading something in him or looking for it. “You have not been idle in the Fade, Warden.”

“I- no, Commander.”

“Are you well?” Connor felt apprehension grip him and was aware of Loyalty’s quiet expectation next to him.

“We should move on, sir.”

“Warden Guerrin I asked you a question.” Surana told him _shortly_ and Connor flinched. “You have been missing for six weeks. Are you well enough to fight?” _Six weeks…_

“In the Fade, yes, I am strong enough to continue, Commander.” Connor forced himself to answer the question but offered nothing more.

“And outside of it?” He could feel Surana’s will pushing hard against his now and Connor surprised both of them by standing firm. He would not let the Commander bully into his mind now, not after everything that had happened. “ _Answer me,_ Connor.”

“I am dying.” He said shortly, clenching his jaw with the admission. “I have been starved and underfed since my capture. I have been poisoned with embrium on a daily basis and often left unable to wake up until several days have passed. I have been beaten and tortured and humiliated, with my withdrawal symptoms used to heighten all of it. My last lucid memory is when Zevran Arainai appeared in my room and left my guard dead, causing the Talon to throw me down the stairs and lock me in a black cell. My last waking memory at all was when the Knights came in to beat me. I am either about to die or my heart has already stopped, Warden Commander, and as long as we are all trapped here there is nothing to be done about it so I would like to _move on_. _Sir_.”

Surana was watching him and yes, he had been listening to Connor, but by the time he finished speaking his commander was already reacting. He was a quiet man, patient, stoic to the point where it often seemed he wasn’t paying attention at all, but in the Fade that was _not_ the case and Connor could _feel_ the change.

There was _anger_ in him. Surana’s face did not change, no, but the twisted fury that burned through him turned the Commander’s insides and armour white hot. He was not angry _at_ Connor, somehow that was undeniably clear, but his rage was still a potent experience. Finally, he spoke.

“I did not march an army from Amaranthine to Redcliffe just to have my Warden murdered in his chains.” The words were a statement. He did not shout, did not bellow, did not rampage or riot or scream. Commander Surana simply spoke and it was true. Lavellan’s concern for Connor was wiped away, Sephri’s insulted feelings were validated and focused, and Connor’s resignation was chased off. “Good men and women have not died just to give your father an unearned victory from beyond the grave. You may be wounded and your situation dire, Warden Guerrin, but you will not die here.”

“Arl Eamon is dead?” The question was not relevant and the words formed awkwardly around him, the idea pinging something in him that Connor was not comfortable with. If the Crows were to be believed then his father had been responsible for the shift from coercion to out-right torture to keep Connor controlled. The tower had been his fault, and the black cell no doubt his idea. Arl Eamon had shamed, disowned and tortured him- and yet Connor felt _remorse?_

It shouldn’t have been this way.

“Warden,” Surana called him back to attention without answering the question. “You will not die here.”

“But sir-”

“You will _not_ die here.” Surana repeated harshly. “I will not allow it. You will not allow it. You, Connor Guerrin of Vigil’s Keep, _will not die here._ ” Connor took a breath and was overwhelmed by the force of the Commander’s will pressing against him and demanding his compliance. Of _all the times_ for Connor’s backbone to hold this was not the right one, but he did not yield, he did not nod his head and chirp back ‘ _yes, sir’, ‘yes, commander,, ‘yes, m’lord’_ \- no!

_The middle link in the chain is the one most prone to snapping._

Loyalty quoted to him and light burst up between them, sending Sephri and Lavellan back with a startled cry and leaving Connor facing directly against his hero and their Commander. They did not have _time_ for this but when Connor tried to step away he felt Surana’s will hound him and snapped back with a hiss of lightning. His will would not be crushed _now_ after losing everything else! He didn’t care if it would help him, he’d said no and that was enough!

“Do you _want_ to die?” Surana demanded, the only thing Connor could see was the Archmage with his flames swirling behind him.

“No, sir, I do not.” Connor pushed back against the heat with the chilling cold of violet light.

“Then why do you resist?”

“Because I will not have one more thing taken from me!” They were not _fighting_ but where fire met lightning there was a sheering _noise_ that sparked and ground painfully. Connor was not strong enough to stand against the Hero of Ferelden of _all people_ but he was _not_ going to yield! This _mattered_ to him! It meant _nothing_ to Surana! Let him go!

“What has been taken from you? Tell me!”

“My armour, my ring, my oath and my staff.”

“Material things that can be replaced!”

“My home-”

“Still stands!”

“My friends!”

“Came here to fight for you!”

“My _pride!_ ” He snapped back and thunder followed his voice. “My _body!_ The skills _I brought_ to the Vigil turned against and perverted in my own flesh! I have been broken in _every_ way, controlled in _every sense!_ I will _not_ give in to your naive hope just to have it ripped away from me like _everything else!_ Back down, Archmage! This is not your fight!”

Connor wasn’t going to lose anymore he wasn’t going to give _up_ one more piece of himself _no matter who_ tried to tell him otherwise! Did he want to die? _Of course not!_ Would he fight until he couldn’t anymore? _Yes! Absolutely he would!_ But did he really have a chance? No. Was he ever going to go home again? _No._ Was he willing to make himself believe it long enough to have the hope expire when it failed? No… _Maker no… Don’t make him hope._ Connor _refused_ to hope…

Surana relented. He _chose to_ relent and that was not the same thing as Connor overpowering him, but it was still the result he’d wanted. Fire and lightning peeled away from each other, revealing the shambled room again in the ghostly shell of Redcliffe Castle. Archmage Surana was standing in his robe and armour, a familiar golden staff with a twisted serpentine body clutching a facetted dawnstone held in his grasp. Connor’s battlemage armour was still damaged from the guilt demon from the previous room, his silverite and serpentstone staff resting in his limp hand.

Surana raised his staff and tapped the end solidly on the floor, a spark of gold light spilling from the point of contact and weaving through the stones, tracing a path towards him that Connor allowed to wash over his feet and spiral up his legs. It was warm and comforting magic, twisting around his boots and flooding up the silverite ribbons of his torn tunic. The spell wove and overwhelmed him, and Connor took a breath and shut his eyes habitually when the glow surged over his shoulders and head.

He’d raged against his Commander- was Loyalty going to break their bond now?

_Of course not._

Oh, well that was something then.

_You are the link in the middle of the chain, the needle which binds many threads. Loyalty demands acknowledgement: trust is the foundation of all wise decisions._

Surana _trusted_ him after that outburst-?

_See for yourself._

The Warden Commander’s spell tied itself off and his will crystalized around Connor, berating his immediate aura rather than against his mind directly.

The black trousers and shirt worn under his armour rewove themselves and transformed from soft cotton and linen to _plush_ warm velvet, his wrists cradled in soft black leather that hugged along his arms. A silverite gorget startled him when the metal closed around his throat and draped down between his shoulders and across his collar bones, protecting him with the throat etched with golden waves and patterns of magical awareness. A heavy robe, plain in cut and its royal blue colour, slipped around him. Floor length but cut wide so he could move in it, the sleeves long down to his wrists. It wasn’t wool. It wasn’t velvet. It was thicker than that and heavier- hide? Some beast, some dark-skinned, terrible creature. His mind almost whispered- no, Surana’s told him outright: _dragon_ skin.

His tattered tunic reformed with thick bands of silverite shimmering between bars of thick blue wool, the sleeveless garment longer now and belted around his waist with tooled leather and steel clasps. The tunic hugged his torso and fell over the dragon skin, ending at mid-thigh and then cut low beneath his knees in the front and back. Belts slipped under his arms and buckled a chevron of silverite firmly to his chest, a griffon’s spread wings clearly etched into it as it covered the rest of what the gorget could not.

His hands were bound in black dragon skin gloves lined with soft lamb’s wool. They were edged in gold and the precious metal formed the arcane symbol of lightning on the palm of his right hand, the overlapping rings of barrier magic on the back across his knuckles. On his off hand Connor had the basic form of a healing spell on the palm and ice etched onto the back. They were Archmage gloves and catered to his magical preferences: one offensive and defensive ability on each hand, the spells half-formed without dipping into his own mana.

Finally, a deep blue capelet studded with silverite formed around his shoulders. The capelet was kept open in the front to expose the breastplate, its silverite edges laced shut at the throat to hide the gorget completely, his medic’s badge burning brightly next to the blazing bars of his rank.

Corporal? No. Sergeant- Captain? He couldn’t- the rank would not form but now it was irrelevant because Connor had never worn armour like this. Even Kindness had only ever reinforced what he’d imagined _himself_ in, and this was clearly something all together different.

Connor didn’t even know if he felt like a battlemage necessarily in all of this finery. But a mage certainly, and a Grey Warden undeniably. Loyalty stood strong against his back and across the bridge of his shoulders, the Spirit humming pleasantly at the changes. The armour had nothing to do with Connor save that he was wearing it: it was the Warden Commander keeping the suit together, refusing to actually pass its maintenance to him. He could feel the spell tethering them together in the Fade and it was not that much unlike the bond Connor held with Loyalty and Kindness.

He came back to this moment and this awful place where he was. Sephri and Lavellan were shocked in their silence, confusion running through the two mages that they would not speak aloud. Connor realized that although _he_ had certainly been shouting and had heard Surana’s voice bellow back at him in their clash, the Fade had not carried their words beyond the swirling wrath of their conflicting magic. They’d simply seen the two of them go off brilliantly at one another in a storm of willpower, watched it calm, and now Surana was walking away from them and Connor was enrobed in new armo-

_Hey, wait!_

“You will _not_ die here.” Surana had found his helmet, conjured it around him. Pride’s water was gone, his robe was golden and sparkling with power, armour shining in the darkness of Redcliffe Castle. That familiar and ill-fated dawnstone staff of his was glowing in his hand, and his boots clicked fiercely as he stormed away from the three of them. Connor was fast to remember his staff and quickly go after him, Lavellan and Sephri on his heels. “I will _not_ allow it.”

“I’ll not complain if you succeed, sir.”

“You’d _fucking better not!_ ” The Warden Commander snapped back at him. Connor felt silverite plates defensively growing across his boots and- he did have to _move_ in this, no? “No complaints!” Ahh-

“Yes, Commander.”

And they continued on.

 


	41. The Tower

Connor knew where Fear had planted itself, and the knowledge made him feel sick.

“I knew something large was lurking in the Fade but it didn’t occur to me that _I_ was the one luring it to Redcliffe…” He admitted the words softly when Commander Surana led him, Warden Lavellan, and Warden Sephri up so high through Redcliffe Castle’s winding corridors that the dream world gave them no more demons, only fears to taunt Connor specifically.

“If they hadn’t kept you asleep and in such an awful state, then this wouldn’t have happened.” Sephri was brisk with him as they walked carefully through a stairwell overgrown with embrium flowers. The black stems and wide leaves were tangled between the stones, ember-orange and yellow blossoms open and following the mages like they were the sun. Connor tried to hold his breath to keep from breathing in their pollen, but his flesh was _aching_ under the new armour crafted for him by the Warden Commander’s will. “Your captors have no one to blame but themselves.”

“Fear of the dragon and the army’s approach no doubt factored into things as well,” Surana spoke from a few paces ahead of them. The Commander was still holding tightly to his anger, his outrage hardly calmed for the minutes wandering the Fade and following the structure of the deformed castle. “It was likely called by the multitude of frightened dreamers, but chose to attack when it sensed mages.” Mages. Plural.

“Oh Maker, _Rowan_ ,” Connor moaned. “I usually know where she is- I haven’t felt her once yet.”

“Have you looked?” Surana asked. Connor tried. Loyalty didn’t know him as well as Kindness and the spirit resisted his immediate urge to make it leave him and look for the little mage girl somewhere in the Fade. He argued with it but Loyalty rebuffed him: it didn’t know Rowan from any other dreamer in the complex and Connor had already sent away one of his spirits. Loyalty would not go.

“Stubborn thing…” He complained.

“They usually are.” Surana kept them moving. There was no stopping, not even when the floor became as overgrown as the walls and Connor struggled not to tough or tear up at the creeping flowers. He wanted to run away from this place and find his sister, leave the poisons behind and take her back to the rotunda where at least then he’d know she was _safe…_ “Focus, Wardens. We’re nearly there.”

“I know where it’s leading us…” Connor moaned.

“Then be ready for it,” the Commander chastised him.

To simple eyes the door at the top of the tower was nothing special. The fact that it did not open was what distinguished it, the simple wood and iron resisting shrewdly when Surana focused against it. This was the final barrier separating them from the Nightmare demon controlling the entire realm, the one that had sundered the Veil and brought Amaranthine’s army to its knees. Commander Surana held his staff out to the door and it did not yield.

“Warden Guerrin that is _enough._ ” Surana addressed him harshly and Connor didn’t-? “What is behind this door?”

“The room where I was tortured,” he said, too confused to feel defensive when Surana’s anger licked at him and made the floor feel hot under his reinforced boots. “Why are you blaming me for this?”

“ _Look_ at it.” He did and he saw iron, and wood, and- “ _Focus, Warden!_ ”

Fine then, he did! Connor looked and he pulled back the illusion of the door’s physical components. He found the conceit and the pride and the self-assurance that the barrier would not be penetrated. He found the- oh… oh that was why Surana was yelling at him…

“Your will is stronger than mine, Commander,” Connor reported back meekly. Shame nipped at him when he found the hard knots of his own fear weaving the door tightly together. Connor did not _want_ to go back to the tower, he did not _want_ to see what was behind the door. He was _afraid_ of it and the demon twisted that around to its own ends. Connor was as much a part of the door as Surana was woven into the armour he was wearing.

“I am not here to break you, Guerrin.” Surana’s voice was tight, teeth wedged together as he hissed. “I’m here to get us _out_ of this nightmare. Master this fear or turn back and rejoin the others.” After the way Connor had acted and run off from them he didn’t think that was possible.

“I have every right to be afraid.” He defended again in his softest voice.

“I did not say _banish_ your fear I said _master_ it!” Surana shouted this time and Connor flinched at his anger. “Do you know what’s happening beyond the Fade, Connor? Do you know what happens to people who get caught up in a demon’s web even without becoming possessed by it?”

“When it happened to me I know the demon ushered its minions through the Veil to possess both the living and the dead.” Maker, was he saying Redcliffe Village would be overrun _again_ if they didn’t get this over with as soon as possible? The Veil was torn, a possessed mage wasn’t necessary if the barrier between worlds was already-

“Demons _feed on_ everyone they capture,” Surana told him. “To the outside world both armies are fast asleep. The injured will bleed until they die, the weak will feel their bodies wither and die to sustain the demon and its power. The others can break as many of those crystals as they desire, in the end we’re all _still_ here and we’re all _still_ at the demon’s mercy. Master your fear, Mage!”

“I’m _trying to_ , sir, I-”

“Have you forgotten who is at risk?” The Commander hounded him again, relentless and demanding. “Open this door, Connor, or Warden Bouclier will die!”

The statement shocked him. It needled him with insult- had he just _threatened-?_

“Does Hawke deserve to die next to you in the dark under Redcliffe Castle?” The second dart landed next to the first one, bleeding hot and _angry_ in him.

“ _Stop_ that.” Connor warned him.

“ _Fear_ is a basic compulsion, Mage!” Surana yelled at him, quoting an old lesson from the Circle’s library. “Arm yourself with anger and whip it to submission! Master your damn fear and open that door or we will all _die!_ ”

“I don’t _like_ your way of doing things,” he hissed, angry and insulted and taking the digs _far too personally_. Something in him _tore_ and it _hurt_ but he felt the door crack and split down the middle. Sephri swung her staff at it and the portal peeled open, vanishing as soon as it was ripped off its hinges.

“Now master your anger and follow when you’ve regained your strength.” The Archmage spoke down at him with authority and swept into the chamber beyond, bringing Lavellan and Sephri in his wake and leaving Connor to _fume_. How _dare_ he make threats like that and-

_You know he speaks the truth._

Loyalty’s voice was muted, the painful snap in Connor’s resolve slowly assuaged by the spirit’s attending presence. Loyalty likened the wound to having fingers jammed in a doorway: painful and focus-breaking, but not truly damaging. Surana _was_ right and Connor _could_ admit that, but he didn’t have to like the way it was done. He let the pain move from some intangible part of his essence to flood and swell over his fingers, massaging the bruised knuckles inside the supple dragon hide of the gloves Surana had given him.

He _was_ loyal, he _would_ obey, and he _did_ trust his Commander. The firm resolution binding his armour together was enough to convince him that Surana did not want to wrong him, but they weren’t here under circumstances that allowed for many options. It wasn’t Surana’s threat if it was something else holding the knife and deciding when to strike. Connor could accept that fact, and the grim resolution it left him with meant he was ready to continue.

“ _Connor!_ ” Or maybe not?

_I helped them!_

Kindness flooded warm and bright through his smarting hand, brushing away the pain and crooning over the gifted armour. Like soft ermine Kindness wound up along his arm and stroked behind his neck, resting gently against his cheeks and settling down content over his shoulders, shimmering through the blue capelet and acknowledging Loyalty with a delighted glow. Connor’s relief to feel the spirit return to him in full took a nervous shock when he realized what Kindness meant by helping.

“You followed me-?” He dropped the question at the feet of the two Wardens who came charging through the Fade towards him, Evie and Carver breaking their sprint up the tower steps and stumbling to a stop before they could barrel through him in their shining armour.

“Do not _ever_ do that again!” Evie scolded harshly, her gauntlet-bound hands taking Connor’s face and he felt the warm, hard edge of her helmet touch his forehead. She was panting because she had been running, her eyes closed in relief and her armour fixed and stable around her because they were not free yet. “Running off in anger and leaving your loved ones behind. I do not care how frightened you are, my love, you will _never_ do that again…”

“I’m sorry…” He apologized to her and knew he would have to repeat it when she pulled away from him, her helmet closed around all of her face so there was no seeing through the silverite. When she stepped back Carver was there just next to her, and he had less control so his helmet was already gone, his black hair damp from sweat after running throughout the entire castle looking for him. “I’m sorry, Carver. But I found the Warden Commander and this is the last room before the Nightmare. We can still end this and get everyone out of here.”

“You found new armour.” Carver stated, making Connor distinctly aware of the dragon skin robe and heavier trousers and shirt padding his body, the breastplate tight across his chest between the capelet and warden tunic. “Kindness led us here.”

“Carver Hawke there are no chairs here,” Evie told him harshly and Connor had _no_ idea what that had to do with anything. “If you insist on small-talk then I will have to use my shield. Say what must be said so we can get _out_ of here and go home.”

“Can it wait?” Connor asked, because he had heard nothing from beyond the shorn open door where Surana and the others had gone. “We’re so close to being out of here-”

“Carver!” Evie shouted to hurry him up.

“I said something stupid to you that I need to fix, Connor.” Carver finally blundered through his nerves to say. “And- I just realized I’ve got to be almost ten years older than you and it’s not helping me think straight because-”

“Carver look at me.” Connor interrupted him before he could bunny-trail off to who knew where. He’d been acting scattered and anxious since arriving in the Fade and who knew- maybe it was how Carver regularly felt and the rest of his bravado was just a carefully cultivated act, but he’d been running himself ragged and this needed to stop. “No, not at the staff or the robe, look at _me_. Carver this needs to stop, because this-? This is not good.” He picked those words and that tone of voice on purpose and when Carver _looked_ at him properly there was a fleeting sense of understanding.

Connor left his staff behind and walked to him, reaching up straight and simple and taking the Warden’s face between his gloved palms, the gold marks pressing against his cheeks and jaw.

“Talk to me.” And say whatever it was because Carver _could not_ carry this into battle against a Fear Demon.

“I love you,” Carver told him and Connor just- _let him talk_. His beautiful eyes were so clear and they watched Connor openly, regarding him with a rare kind of warmth. “Not as a brother and not the same as a friend but I love you. It frightens and it hurts me to hear you say you’re going to die here, Connor Guerrin, so I need you to understand that unless you leave the Fade with us I’m not leaving either. I will not lose _one more person_ who matters to me. I don’t care if that means I have to babysit Kindness and follow your pissy ass around the Fade for the next hundred years, you are not getting rid of me, Connor, and I am not leaving you behind.”

“I like this one.” Connor felt _something_ that nudged against his chest and made him step back, confused by tousled black hair and green robes and arms locked around Carver’s armoured torso, a pleased green glow shimmering where spirit and dreamer made contact.

“Loyalty!” No- do not _ruin this moment!_

“Not another one- _not a-fucking-nother one!”_ Carver _shrieked_ , grabbing at Loyalty’s arms and pulling the elven avatar off of- _“Why does it look like Ansera!?_ You and your fucking spirits! I take it back! Fuck the Fade, I’m going home!” The damned thing _was_ Jylan, it was! Connor felt Kindness bidding Evie be calm and to not hit Carver with her shield. Carver dropped Loyalty and the spirit immediately began running delighted circles around the three of them, soft motes of light scattering under its fleeting steps. Connor felt himself being taken roughly by one arm and dragged towards the open door.

“I’m going home, and _you’re coming with me!_ ” Carver told him shrewdly, and with Evie rolling her eyes and offering absolutely no help at all as she trotted along, Connor was half-dragged-half-carried through the doorway into the next room.

“Warden Hawke that is quite enough,” Commander Surana’s voice drawled heavily as Connor was dragged inside. “Put him down.”

“Where is it?” Carver demanded, letting Connor go as roughly as he’d grabbed him. He couldn’t help the word _‘Ass’_ from passing his lips in frustration, Evie’s hand there to steady him and her hidden smile trying to tell him to keep calm. “I’m going to stab it!”

“I agree with you, but it’s not here.” Sephri called and Connor was able to get a… horrible… look around.

His skin _crawled_ and he felt the pain beginning to sting and spread across his chest. The broken windows howled with sharp ribbons of cold wind. The grey stone floor was covered in snow and slick water. There was the canvas folded over itself, a length of it spread out where he had laid and it was still stained with watered down blood. There were the boxes and crates of nothing useful, the rashvine leaves trampled in the rain and blood. Connor could feel the sores opening up on his calves again, a damp, cold feeling needling under the gorget hidden by his armour.

“Connor?” Evie said, placing her hand over his wrist and Connor felt the fear racing cold through him. He looked for Kindness and felt the spirit kicking down at the pain, Loyalty melding into him again and pushing a softly glowing barrier out to stop the wind from reaching him. He was dressed so warmly but already felt the demon pressing _inward_ and telling him that he was _cold._

“It’s here.” He answered, voice in shambles and his hand twisting to find hers and squeeze tightly. Evie answered him with confidence and affection and Carver drew his sword with his helmet closing fast and strong around his head. Surana was standing by the bloodied canvas, letting the sight of the blood and Connor’s distress fuel his anger and cause it to burn brightly with Duty humming strong through the lines of his armour. Lavellan kept looking between the rashvine leaves and Connor, unable to see the shakes in him thanks to Surana’s armour, but the herb only had one purpose and that was to cause pain. Sephri was close to Carver, her staff slowly turning end over end and her dark eyes searching with the rest of her senses.

“ _Brother!_ ” The little girl’s voice set every Warden on immediate edge and facing the door. Connor heard Evie’s sword and shield come down and her hand left his, the silverite wall poised to stand between him and whatever came at them.

“Rowan…” He knew better. Connor _knew better_. He’d been in the Fade for long enough, he’d faced so _many_ demons. He knew better than to trust Rowan when his sister came running in her red tunic and grey trousers and tooled belt and free-flowing dark hair and threw herself at him. Connor knew better but he ducked and caught the girl in his arms with a tight hug, her arms closing around him and her grinning face pressed against his. There was no fear in her and that was _wrong._ She should have been _terrified._

“It worked! Brother it worked!” Rowan gasped, elated and filled with relief and joy and it was _not right_. “Mother was right and he was able to help you! I just had to find you again and you were _here_! We have to find mother and then we can escape, Connor, I know we can.”

“Slow down, little dreamer.” Connor breathed the words as calmly as he dared, holding her close, his hand behind her head and stroking down through her dark, tangled hair. “Escape to where?”

“To Orlais, with mother!” Rowan told him pushing away and standing with his touch still folded around her and her hands on his breastplate, suddenly marvelling at it and his changed clothes as he knelt in front of her. She gave him a brilliant grin and tried to find his hands. “Father will be waiting for us with a carriage at Fort Connor, and we’ll all go to Orlais together and be safe!” Oh child…

It wasn’t a demon wearing his sister’s face, it was his _sister_. Connor knew it was so because he focused on Lavellan, and Sephri, and Surana, and they all spun the same thread of confusion. This was no demon. But how could Rowan survive and run freely through the demon’s domain, utterly care free in the realm of Fear?

“Rowan… how did you get here?” Connor asked from his knees and oh no, please, please don’t let it be this way… “I couldn’t find you.”

“I ran of course.” She gave her answer smart and bright, like he was a fool for asking. “And you couldn’t find me because you never leave your room at all. But that’s okay because he said he’d cure you of your illness and you’ll be able to walk about properly now, just like you do when we’re sleeping.” She thought they were awake. She’d forgotten the _only thing_ he’d tried to actually teach her.

“And who told you that they would cure me, little dreamer?” He was going to cry. Connor’s folded legs were bleeding and there were shallow, painful cuts slicing across his chest on both sides, blood weeping through his shirt and making the silverite plate of the gorget cold against his skin. His fingers were shaking in his gloves and when he stroked a lock of his sister’s hair back his fingers felt sore from the cold. “Rowan… what did you do?”

“I told him to help you because he has to do whatever mother and father tell him, which is as good as my saying so instead.” No, no, _no, no…_ “Connor what’s wrong? Why are you about to cry? I’d thought you be happy that we get to go with mother to Orlais- do you need your medicine?” _No!_

“How did you convince him to listen to you, Rowan? You’re not a Lady of Redcliffe yet.” Connor’s voice was shaking, his will fragmenting because _no_ , _not again_. It couldn’t happen to his _own sister_ …

“I…” She hesitated, and then in an awful moment she stuck out her chin and made herself stand tall and proper, hands on her hips with a proud huff. “I gave him my magic. All of it. I’m not a mage anymore, brother, and-”

“ _Oathbreaker!_ ” Connor shouted and slammed her away from him with both hands. Rowan shrieked and fell and Connor was in _tears._ “You _stupid girl!_ ” He screamed. _No!_

“Connor!” A fine black boot stepped across his sister. No. A black bearskin mantle swirling low to the floor. _No..._

“Now, now, Enchanter.” _No…!_ That Antivan voice spoken with its low timbre. The fine wine red velvet doublet embellished with gold. Luxurious black vambraces, his skilled strong hands, his silver-threaded beard and thick black hair framing a face mature and convincing in authority. “That is not how we treat a _mere child_.” No, _no, no-!_

“ _Hold!_ ” Surana’s voice broke through the raging terror seizing Connor’s mind. He was on his hands and knees and _oh_ he was in pain. He could feel the blood slipping thick and cold down his chest and abdomen, the robe and tunic too thick to show the bleeding. His left shoulder was flayed, his thighs raw from blisters. He was hurting and Connor didn’t even _care_. His sister, _his sister… no… Rowan **no** …_

Evie was directly in front of him, her shield up and focus torn between worry for him and anger at the Crow now standing in their midst. Surana was ahead of her again, his staff crossed over him and Duty singing in the lines of his form. Carver was the reason for the command to hold, his sword raised and ready to attack. Lavellan and Sephri flanked Connor from behind, but their magic could not touch him. This pain was his, not because Connor wanted it but because something _else_ was in control.

“My business is not with you, Consort.” Talon Diego spoke down at Surana, and with a swipe of his hand-

A great sheet of glass struck and shattered loudly against Surana, the Warden Commander not even deigning to flinch as he held firm and the demon took a shard of annoyance for its trouble.

“I am not to be dismissed,” Surana told the demon plainly. “Release your hold on the girl.”

“Doubtless I shall do that and much more,” Diego’s cordial voice agreed. “But not for you.”

“Remove your influence from my Warden.”

“That is simply impossible given the nature of my agreement with the young lady.” She was possessed… his sister was _possessed…_

“Explain.” Surana demanded.

“Not to you.”

“Then _die-”_ Surana’s staff kicked out and Connor _screamed_.

_Who do you think-_

His mind went to pieces and when it reformed he was _wet_ and he was _cold_ and he was _choking_ on lungs full of water and waste. Blind eyes opened in darkness rank with blood and feces. Laying on something warm, hard metal biting his back, limp fingers tangled under his. Bruises and faded marks from beatings, sore places and raw skin and heavy warm slowly breathing weight cast over his legs. He was in the dark and Kindness was far away and Loyalty was struggling to find him and he could not _breathe._ Connor could not _breathe_.

The veil was in tatters and he could not _brea-_

_-has been keeping him alive?_

Connor _slammed_ back into the Fade, physically flung down on Surana and knocking the Archmage down in a tumble. The shock snapped the Warden Commander’s focus and Connor himself was spiralling through pain and whiplash. He was almost aware, half-awake to the way Surana twisted out of the prone position and came to one knee, then to his feet again. His staff was angled defensively down and covering Connor behind him.

Connor found one elbow and hacked hard on the ground, mind spinning in terror as the spirits rolled through him and tried to fend off the smoke-like fingers of fear shredding his focus. His ears unplugged to the sound of:

“Attack the girl or myself and your Warden will die. It is quite a simple concept.” In Talon Diego’s voice, and Connor _wept…_ “She cried out for a way to save her brother, and clearly this form inspired the greatest confidence in seeing that need met. In exchange for his life I have her power, my window into your world thrown breathlessly open to me.”

“And yet you linger-” A silver lance of power struck out at Surana for speaking, leaving a smoking gash of broken metal across his silverite bracer. Connor flinched wildly at the strike and grasped his head with both hands, breaths _wheezing_ through his teeth.

“I am not here to address _you_.” The demon repeated, its will causing the floor to buckle and the tower tremble as it tried to shove Surana aside. The Commander would _not_ move and Connor felt Loyalty whisper for direction before finding it murmured frantically past his lips. Green moved from Connor’s knees on the floor and coiled quick and protective around the Archmage, the light bracing and supporting Surana and causing Duty to resonate and mend the gash in his armour. “ _Stubborn._ ”

“Proud.” Surana corrected sharply. “And if you were going to kill him you would have done so already. You have the girl but she isn’t the one you want!” Fear exhaled heavily through Diego’s mouth, the demon rolling his head back across the furry black mantle. Rowan was kneeling behind the demon still, scrubbing tears from her face and looking out hurtfully from behind his legs at Connor.

Carver came down on one knee behind him and Connor felt his touch firm and concerned across his back, his sword down and trying to convince him to stop grasping his head so frantically. He knew he was unshaved, his scarred face filthy. He could not correct it- not the bruises on his hands or the mats in his too-long red hair. He was dying, Fear was keeping him alive as something to barter with, and in order for _anyone else_ to get away Connor would have to cut himself off from the demon first. He was _dying._

Silverite-clad fingers squeezing his shoulder tightly and Carver’s voice tried to reach him, to make him stand. Connor didn’t move, he was watching his sister. She’d tried to help but she’d given up the _only thing_ worth protecting! She was _possessed!_ The one promise he’d made her repeat over and _over_ and _over again_ and she’d just _thrown it away! For **nothing**!_

For his life? He could have fought for that himself how could she _do this!?_

“Change is coming.” Fear pronounced slowly. “I will have sustenance without end when the Pride of Pride is unleashed, and I will not be swept away with the refuse of ten thousand minds lost. I will have the vessel I desire and Fear will show its potency with or without the Veil to mask it.”

“Release Rowan,” Connor spoke up from behind Surana and the Archmage did not react, but the demon did. It opened its eyes with a vile yellow light leaking through them, Connor’s armour feeling hot and under attack across his shoulders as an uncomfortable heat began to focus on Surana standing between Connor and Fear. The Commander’s staff did not waver and his resolve remained the same, but Surana’s winged pauldron abruptly _snapped_ off and struck Evie’s raised shield with a spark.

“Stand down, Consort.” The demon told him and Connor heard Surana’s answer come _booming_ back, Duty speaking as much as the Archmage and denying the demon soundly. _He_ was the Warden Commander, _he_ was the Arl, _he_ was the officer and _he would not_ let a demon wearing the face of someone Connor was _terrified of_ come another step closer to him. A sharp hiss broke out in the air and only stopped when the side of Surana’s helmet cracked straight down past his eye. He flinched as silverite went peeling away at the cheek before regaining his stance. This was his _purpose_ and the spirit bolstering him would not accept compromise.

No, it- Duty would _not_ compromise. It refused-? Even if Surana wanted to, the spirit-

“What about my duty to my sister?” Connor spoke up, voice and hands shaking as he finally accepted Carver’s arm and used the help to rise to his feet. He didn’t want to let go of him, but he had to. “Duty! It won’t speak with Surana and fighting directly will cause you both to fail miserably if it kills me from spite! This is _my_ task. Let him step aside.”

_No._

“Yes!” He argued, Surana’s grip on his staff starting to shake before one of his greaves shattered with a hiss of hot metal. _Stop!_ “Duty, acknowledge me! A Friend of Kindness and Loyalty! Let my Commander step aside: this is not his fight!” Don’t do this- no, _no, don’t do this-_

_If it is your fight then it is his. He is the warlord. He is the master. He did not uphold his obligation of protection to his son or his soldier: he will be redeemed now or he will die._

“You two were _meant_ for each other-!” Connor let the words slip through the Fade on a breath of exasperation. “The Commander’s duty is to his army which is trapped by the demon before you! Dying to protect one will forfeit his obligation to the hundred beneath us! I failed my duty to protect Rowan from possession, let me correct my own mistake which was made independently from his! Are you Duty or Dishonour? Let me face my demon!” He would not fail against it and he would not die and shame Surana- just _let him go!_

Surana’s arms buckled and he unfroze, the edges of his golden robe smoking as he staggered and then tried to hide it by pushing one foot back and side-stepping out of the way. He planted his staff hard on the floor and worked hard not to lean on it, his head not high enough and his pride clearly wounded. Connor made sure Surana understood that he could be as angry with him as he wanted because it didn’t change the fact that Fear wouldn’t talk to him.

His hand grabbed Carver’s hard and squeezed, then released and he quickly stepped forward to the spot Surana had left.

“Shall we strike an accord, Enchanter?” Fear purred through the Talon’s mouth, and Connor felt his nervous lungs seize- or was it Surana’s will holding him tightly through his armour? His skin was still raw and bleeding, standing was a terrible chore with his blistered legs, but he was up and he was speaking and he was not alone or in the dark.

“You’ve already violated the agreement I had with the man whose face you’ve stolen.” Connor told the demon with a horrible shake in his voice. “Rowan traded her magic for my life: tell me why the Veil tore open!” The demon sighed and rolled its head again, not a habit the Talon had displayed.

“Because this place has been thin for many years.” It explained, and it didn’t go ripping through his soul or sucking his blood dry in exchange for it either. “Two armies clash and many lives are crushed between them, powerful wills and stronger magics wreaking havoc a being such as myself could hardly ignore. When I reached through the Veil for the girl’s eyes, I received a luscious bounty for my troubles.”

“You’ve grown greedy is what you mean!” Connor rebuffed it, his voice breaking. “All these souls and bodies just floating about for you to snatch up! No pact-making necessary? Most of them have been freed already and they’ll be more than happy to fight you for their freedom! The only one you have for certain is Rowan and you haven’t run off with her yet! _Why not?_ ”

“Because I do not want a mageling child. It was not her magic which cleared this part of the realm, which warned away the lesser beasts and cultivated the spirits.” It was _Connor’s_.

“I’m hardly some unblemished fruit to be consumed!” He bit back in disgust. “Desire has already done its worst to me. You’re hardly anything to write home about!”

“But the _fear_ it left in you is undeniable,” Fear breathed longingly, and his shredded skin _crawled_. “And the great stretch and distortion of your soul, that which allows you to draw so _much_ of your will to bear against the Fade. Your magic, your _power_ , and the knowledge you have buried in your innate spirit from Desire’s touch…” Maker it _disgusted him_ to hear the demon talk like this. “Desire perverted your every want. Your father alive, but laying as the dead. Your uncle by your side, but a mindless fool to dance about for amusement. Your mother brought to heel with her harping and her overbearing control, but so _miserable…_ Fear offers none of those gross perversions, Mage. I will simply do as I have for your sister: relief from that which haunts you most. Protection from your _true_ demon. It is not fear itself which frightens you, Mage, it is-”

“Despair, yes, bravo: good for you.” Connor made sure his praise was cheap and his tears dry on his face. “Get to the part where you release my sister!”

“All you have to do is come with me, and the girl can do as she pleases.” Fear extended its hand out to him, palm up.

“Or the Wardens in this room and amassing below us can kill you- freeing her that way instead.” He spat.

“Killing _you_ in the process,” Fear cautioned.

“I’m going to go ahead and agree with my Commander that you keep _saying_ that but haven’t acted-”

_If hysteria is what it will take to break you,_

The Fade _shrieked_ and he was in the dark. It was cold. He was soaking wet- blood and filth and sweat and the chafing marks on his wrists and around his throat. The black iron had crushed his throat and the metallic taste of blood mixed with embrium caked his mouth. He was _not_ blind, it was just too dark to see, the Veil’s whispering threads tattered and waving in rolling dark mist. Connor was cast over Carver’s legs and Velanna was unconscious across him, Evie’s hand on his arm and he could not _breathe-!_

_Then hysteria is what I will inspire._

He went _back to the Fade…_

Fear tightened a hand around Connor’s bruised throat and he _choked_ , voices shouting around him and Surana demanding they _hold!_ Do not attack!

The Talon had grown too many feet tall and towered over him, clutching his throat and looming over his head like a distorted shadow. It threw him down and Connor could not breathe- sound rushed from him when his arms burned with pain and collapsed, dropping him hard on his back, on the canvas where he’d been bled for days. His skin had been cut to ribbons and he was bleeding again- bleeding too much and too cold and he could not get off his back he could not _move_ it was the Fade and Fear was telling him _no_ , he would not rise from this.

The Talon slammed one boot down on his chest and Connor heard Evie shouting at it to stop, Mahanon trying to goad the beast with his curses. Surana was firm- _do not attack!_

“Give me your hand,” the demon said, palm extended to him again. “And the girl goes _free_ …” He could hear Rowan _crying…_

“I’m- _sick_ of being the- _victim_ -” Connor gasped, his arm lifting, every part of him in _agony_ because he was- _going_ to- _die-!_ “Go _fuck_ yourself!”

He swung his arm up and clapped his gold-painted palm against the back of Diego’s knee. Fear’s leg erupted with white lightning and Connor woke up in the belly of Redcliffe Castle.

He was alone in the dark and he could not _breathe_.

 


	42. Agency

“ _Kindness-_ ”

He could not breathe.

_“Leave me-”_

He could not see.

_“-help them!”_

_No, no, no, no…_

Connor could barely move the breath from his mouth to the back of his throat. His lungs were stopped up tight and nothing would make them relax and let him take the air past his teeth. There were ribbons of pain heating his ribs, panic humming nervously in the base of his skull. His eyes swam in the darkness and he felt the weight of Castle Redcliffe bearing down on him, surrounded by quieter breaths he could barely hear over his own desperate panting. He could not feel their heartbeats or reach out to find hands or faces in the dark, his arms _would_ move but he couldn’t find anything but sharp metal and rough leather.

He was awake, rejected by the demon for his insolence. He could feel the torn veil like the feathers of broken magic wafting through the air over his chilled flesh. Connor was damp all over with sweat and the warmth sandwiched around him by Carver and Velanna felt like the last thing keeping him alive.

 _“Help them-_ ” He gasped because it was the only thing left that mattered. Connor doubted he was even speaking, just the rasp of half-breaths cutting over his tongue in the dark. His eyes ached and he was crying and Kindness was wrapped through him so desperately Connor thought the spirit might weep with him. “ _Help them-_ ”

_They are fighting Fear._

“ _Help them-_ ”

_She approaches._

_“Who-?”_ A small word for a smaller breath.

_The Inheritor._

_“Help them…_ ” He pleaded again.

Connor felt a painful seize in his gut and he knew he wasn’t strong enough to roll. He was held between Carver’s legs where the Warden had knelt and held him. The demon and tattered Fade had caused him to fall back with the weight of his armour and lay twisted behind Connor, his shin-guards biting painfully into Connor’s back and shoulders. Between Velanna’s weight cast across his legs where she had been leaning over him before falling and Connor’s own weakness, he could not move.

His body _retched_ and he could not move. His fingers clawed at the damp, filthy stones, he tried to push that elbow down and lever himself. His stomach squeezed sour pain up his throat and he could not turn away with it, could not turn his head far enough. These were going to be his last moments and Connor could _not-_

He was dying.

_He was dying._

Choking to death on his own vomit, he-

“Warden.”

- _was dying!_

No light but Kindness’ and the sound of footsteps fast and quick. Hands that grabbed him, searched his face, and then with a grip under his arm heaved him hard onto his side. Muscles spasmed and he coughed, vomited again, _cried out_ and could not _move_ …

One hand held his shoulder and the other started beating on his back. He coughed and coughed and Connor didn’t know _how_ he was able but there had to be air for him to force the vomit out, he _had_ to be breathing but he could not _feel_ it happening. The pounding on his back stopped and there was a murmur of frustration, the scrape and shove of dead weight being thrust aside, and then the person was back again.

“Breathe,” he could _not_ \- “You are fortunate I came to see if the passage was open still, and should thank your spirit for my haste in reaching you.” Kindness reached out where Connor could not and the woman hooked her arms under his, dragging him from the fallen Wardens and laying him on the frozen cold ground with his shivering and shallow panting. He could not see her in the darkness but he could feel Kindness and what little breath he could take back was his again. The woman’s thin hand pressed down flat on his chest and he tried to wheeze out at her:

“ _Push-!”_ he begged.

“Like a bellow?” He didn’t care what she thought it was like he just cared that she _did it_. Oh it _hurt_ his brittle bones and it choked him when his frantic gasps were interrupted, but he _breathed_ and it was still not a full breath, but it was _air_. “How are you awake?”

“The demon-” It was easier; it was half-breaths now with her hands pressing down on his chest. Over and over. Each breath a labour. “-cast me out.”

“Magic on this side of the veil is unstable at best,” the woman told him. Kindness had called her the Inheritor. Fear and Duty had called Surana the Inheritor’s _Consort_. This was Lady Morrigan? “I am not about to sit here and act as your new set of lungs, Warden. What afflicts you?”

“ _Embrium,_ ” his voice rasped.

“Then if your friend Compounder Ansera has done his job correctly, you are in luck.” Her voice sounded so _dismissive_ , as if he had traipsed into the Commander’s apartments by accident whilst searching for the larder of all things. “I will need both hands to help you. You will struggle but I shall attend to you in a moment.” Maker Watch Over him, Connor told himself to be ready when the weight of her hand forcing his lungs to breathe left him, but he was _not_.

His fear came flooding back- the shallow movement of air, the light-headed terror. Lady Morrigan did not leave but she did not help and Connor _could not breathe…!_

_Be calm, she aids you._

He _could not-!_

“You have a terrible fever, Warden.” It was agony and she sounded _so far away_ from him. When the force of her hand came back and pressed down _hard_ on his chest Connor gagged. He tried to breathe, her rhythm and his did _not_ match and he struggled for every weak rasp of air. “You will drink this, and I will take you to where your Commander has fallen. I dare not leave him unattended for too long in this place and should the cold outside kill you outright then you had not a chance in the first place.”

He wanted to _scream_ but it would not come. He felt the weight of her knee come down and _crush_ his lungs, forcing him to take the deepest breath his tightly-wrapped lungs could muster before a glass tube was shoved past his soft teeth, the vial clicking when he tried to clench his jaw. The watery metallic _stink_ of embrium tipped fast and was gone down his throat before Connor even tasted it. It was not just embrium and water but his tongue was too caked in layers of Maker Knew What to tell him what Jylan had made to sate him.

The panic was in him, the _pain_ was _awful_ , but he swallowed and then it became a game of waiting. Laying on his back in the dark with Lady Morrigan pressing down on him to make sure he kept breathing. Kindness remained bound to his soul and refused to leave him even when he silently pleaded with the spirit to go and find the others where they were fighting. Not _one_ of them would survive if Fear defeated the Grey Wardens…

Time had to pass and Connor had to fret. Was time faster in the Fade or out here in the living world? Had the battle come and gone in the blink of an eye and the rest were fated to wither and be consumed by the creature? Had hours passed or seconds? He didn’t know. The only way to know anything was to go _back._

The demon had kept him alive- was it _still_ keeping him alive?

“You are breathing better already. However, this next part will not be pleasant for either of us.”

The next part was Connor proving he could not walk when even with Lady Morrigan’s help he could hardly take her hand and try to sit up. She dragged him painfully onto what she called a dead man’s cloak and used that like a sled to pull him away from the others. She told him not to fret after them when they had more important things to lay their focus to, but Connor could not fight the helpless fear as he felt himself round a bend and felt certain he would never see the others again.

To say that he was cold at this point felt like a redundancy. There was no warmth, no heat. Nothing, not even his own tears or the vomit crusting his filthy clothes was warm. His eyes had clouded over from the drug and withdrawal for he realized the world was _not_ all darkness, he simply could not see any longer. Form and shape meant nothing to his scarred eyes. Connor could only feel pain when he was dragged over blocks of ice, bruised against the corners of leaning walls, and his senses spun in a nauseating cloud when he realized the dredges of the tattered veil were leaching into his skin like thick ropes of dead flesh.

Lady Morrigan laboured to move him but through his own hell Connor wasn’t aware of her making any complaints. The stairs were the worst, at least they both thought as much until Connor’s breaths began to leave him again and the chasind woman chastised him in what they both mistook for a worried tone.

“You should not be through so much of the drug so quickly.” His ears were ringing and as far as his strength went Connor might as well have been dead when she spoke to him. Another bottle from Velanna’s medical kit was opened and poured down his throat, Connor swallowing it down and feeling none of the warmth he was used to. Jylan’s concoction was too weak… “You… must calm yourself. I do not think it is the Taint interfering: you are hardly in any condition to fly into a rage.”

Connor could not answer her and he didn’t know what he would have said anyways.

It took him far too long when the movement stopped to realize she had left him alone. He didn’t know where he was or how much time passed, he only became aware of Lady Morrigan again when something heavy dropped over his body. It was not enough to smother him, but it was tucked and furled around his arms and legs, and then the same weight was doubled. And then a third time.

“Tis all I could find on such a short leash.” Blankets? Or stolen cloaks. It was winter and Connor was deathly feverish. He wondered why his mind felt so lucid still and realized it was Kindness: the spirit was blocking the raging pain of embrium’s frozen touch and was keeping his mind just far enough away from his flesh.

A door opened, wind rushed down- still laden with tattered magic and the violently sundered veil, but it was wind and it was cold and Connor felt his skin freeze, crack, and bleed. He openly wished his next breath would be the last one as Lady Morrigan dragged him further. The weight of Redcliffe Castle vanished and Connor’s exposed face was blasted by winter’s touch. His throat should have sealed shut in ice, he ought to have been dragged through heavy snow, he should have died as soon as his body reached the cold outdoors but his heart was stubborn and the fear demon was still alive. Connor had been cast out of the Fade but if he was still alive against all reason then that meant Rowan was still _possessed…_

“I can do nothing more for your pain so long as the veil remains in tatters,” Her voice came from someplace so far away Connor could not find it near him. He knew that she spoke and nothing else. “Your Commander will not abide by your condition once this is ended but his aid is beyond us now, and I am no proper healer. If the Demon truly ejected you from the Fade and the chaos now is a sign of the army’s renewed efforts against it- will you fight again, Warden? Or have you retired from the field? Either I drag you beyond the castle wall and trust the medics to ease your passing, or you remain here and fight.” A choice?

A choice that was not really a choice at all. Certain death wearing a mask of agency and parading about like it made a difference one way or the other what Connor chose to do. Die quietly in a medical tent with no one who knew him or die fighting in the Fade next to the spectres of the only people who mattered? Both paths led to the same end.

“ _Fight._ ” He breathed, his waxy white lips barely holding the word before it fluttered off.

“T’was good of him to bring four of these to battle.” Connor did not know what it was at first, but then _pure warm sunlight_ spilled into his mouth and he closed his blind eyes in the shadows of the quieted castle. He felt his spirit breathe and the world turn brilliant and white for a heartbeat, Lady Morrigan’s pleasure and her will resting inches from him and extending a simple hand out for him to take and be led to battle. His last choice.

Respectfully however, that was not how this matter would be attended. Lady Morrigan, Inheritor or not, Arlessa or not, had not journeyed into the Fade recently and did not know the Fear demon’s domain or intentions- at least not nearly as well as Connor did. It was the mental equivalent of a bashful headshake, a simple beckoning, and Lady Morrigan took _his hand_ before the pair of them flew into the Fade.

The world flipped directly on its head, and Connor felt the buffeting air of the falling Fade rip and tear past him. He was spirit without form and a conscious mind shaking off the cobwebs of death, lyrium singing through his soul before he wound arms close, twisted hard and formed himself as Warden and Mage plummeting through the blood-red sky!

“ _Loyalty!_ Where are they!?”

Formless clouds and misshapen land became the towers and body of Redcliffe Castle. It birthed itself from the ether several hundred feet below where he and Morrigan were streaking down through the dreamscape. The broken walls, the crumbling towers, the fires raging throughout the many shambled wings and corridors formed clearly beneath them, the courtyard a great bowl of shouting voices and raised weapons.

The greatest of the towers split itself open like a tree consumed with flames below them, the walls peeling over themselves as great wings of blighted flesh unleashed themselves. No more a human man with poisons and a cruel grin: Fear took the worst nightmare of any Grey Warden and all the men of Redcliffe. The demon’s grand neck flailed a head crowned with bleeding horns, eyes spitting flames like the liquid green death exhaled below as its clawed fore and hind legs ripped down the face of the castle.

The _Archdemon_ ’s girth crushed the main body of the keep, and with a bellowing scream that shook the Fade it landed amidst the army. It was pierced with swords and shields crashed against its hide, the behemoth’s tail lashing the castle walls as Fear feasted on the terror.

 _“Loyalty!_ ” Connor shouted again, and a thread of silvery green light corded out quickly from his chest and spat through the air. It danced and twisted, piercing the rubble of the fallen tower where stones were already rising, Wardens pulling themselves from the debris with barely bumps or bruises for their terrifying trouble.

Carver’s blind rage raked his sword through scales when the Archdemon’s tail lashed too close to him, and Evie’s crushing will caused bricks to bounce like chips of wood off her shield as she advanced. Warden Mahanon cast a barrier so rigid and realized that the creature’s legs buckled when it failed to slam its clawed arm down into the charging army, and Sephri plunged into the fray screaming to rally Wardens to _fight!_ Velanna’s will was so cold the barrier of ice _froze_ the demon’s breath when it tried to overwhelm her line, Nathaniel’s thick black arrows blooming from its chest and shoulder. Oghren’s horn split the air and his fury would not bend.

Connor felt the spirits spiralling around him as he dropped towards the battle, and with one hand flung down against the howling wind he sent them off: Kindness levelled the ground and slammed up a wall of fallen stone to give Carver the cover and firm footing to dig in and fight back. Loyalty hammered through the hearts of Wardens blown back and frightened by the violence around them, brought their shields up and called them to arms.

“ _You have grown bold!_ ” Morrigan laughed to him in delight, her fall controlled and her magic spinning fluidly as her will began to weave and form a powerful spell Connor almost knew.

“I have had time to practice!” He told her.

“Hobble its wings so it cannot fly away!” And in a gust of liquid black smoke Lady Morrigan vanished into the shape of a diving raven.

Connor felt his staff form and the green foci buffeted hard against the crimson sky. He twisted his arm and hooked the weapon behind his shoulder to brace it, gritting his teeth as the distance between him and the ground was shrinking rapidly now. The serpentstone would not hold so _blast it!_ _Paragon’s Lustre!_ The Maker’s thunderous eye that would remake the clouds the emerald gemstone slashed through as his will crystalized!

The staff cut the sky, gathered the clouds and Connor’s gloves crackled with building thunder. He pulled himself into a spin and felt the Fade pinch and swirl in his wake, the clouds cork-screwing tightly.

No simple violence or blind panic in this storm: no! Surana had dressed him as an Archmage and Connor brought the fury and brilliance of that office down through the sky. A body of rampaging brilliance birthed from the clouds and Connor was just his mind and will driving through it. He did not fall: he dove and split the trunk of howling might into three arms, great branches of power that cut the air and caused a hammer-fall of light and _heat_ and _pain_ and indignant _rage!_

Lightning crashed and burned between the dragon’s shoulders, it speared the thin membrane of the right wing, and Connor followed the course of the left arm when the beast resisted the spell’s third strike. He reformed himself as mage and man and his staff swung up in his freefall, the bladed end correcting itself into a scythe’s wicked claw that pierced the wing’s folds and his own weight dragged it _down_.

He made himself weigh more and told the Fade the momentum of his spiralling dive made him _too much_ for the wing’s tension to bear, the blade _would_ go through and Connor _would_ slice down it. Even when Fear flailed the limb to shake him loose he would _not_ fly off! He was no minor irritation! No dismissive little pest! _Face him!_

His feet hit the ground under a rain of dragon’s blood and Connor’s staff swung up, grasping the tail-ends of his own lightning strike and refused to release the swirling sky from its vortex. He stepped, pulled, swung up high and Paragon’s Lustre threw a thick bolt of white hatred from his place under the mending wing and sought out the spaces between scales to flay flesh from gut!

The Archdemon reared back on its hind legs and Connor felt Wardens running to meet him, trying to get close enough to strike with their swords. They were lost under a gout of searing green fire and Connor’s breath went tight in his chest, his arm flung out and barrier magic flying off his glove with Kindness sweeping over him and away to reinforce the spell.

Connor was too focused on stopping the fire to keep the dragon’s great claws from closing tight around him and dragging him straight into the air. His robe and armour shimmered with reawakened will, the gorget strong and refusing to buckle as he was squeezed, the breastplate resisting the jagged edges of the dragon’s claws. The dragon-skin robe let him bruise and scream but refused to tear as his hips were crushed and arms pinned.

The Nightmare grasped him, _crushed him_ , and then threw Connor down hard and fast.

Surana’s magic caught Connor so strong and quick it felt like passing from screaming wind into deep cool water. Light surged down his throat and spun through his insides, erasing pain and clearing his mind. From mid-air to ground level he was turned right-way up and landed solid on both feet again, his staff in hand and self standing fully armed and awake to the fighting.

 _“Wardens!_ ” The Commander’s voice _bellowed_ in front of him. “ _Rally against the right flank!”_ About Connor’s ankles and cast shimmering and brilliant across the ground was a vibrant glow of restoring magic, the spell weaving constant and effortless from Surana’s feet out to the men and women pulling back and rushing forward around him. Duty was the shield kept aloft in front of him, Loyalty trumpeting loudly as it threaded between hearts and surged past Connor as a green fairy-light.

“Took you long enough to show up!” A gaunt voice boomed out behind him, and Connor felt Oghren form between the swirling blue spilling from the Spirit Healer commanding the battle.

“Where do you need me?” Connor gasped,

“Morrigan’s got Lavellan on high ground raining hell with Nathaniel! Velanna an’ the Commander’ll keep the men on their feet! Either you take the right flank and help them charge around to get behind that thing or you go dig Redcliffe out!”

“Out of what?” And Oghren pointed _past_ the demon where it was crouched at the base of the castle steps, its tail sweeping back and forth over the stairs. Tucked down under the dragon’s left wing, the one Connor had slid down and which had now repaired itself to spite him, were soldiers. They were not Grey Wardens and they were men and women who had the most reason to fear the dragon dripping blood and blight from its molted scales.

The militia, soldiers, and remaining Knights of Redcliffe were not only standing useless at the side of the battle. They were not _only_ in the best position from which to launch an attack at the dragon’s flank and wasting it. Redcliffe’s combined and debilitating terror was _feeding_ the demon and making it _stronger!_

“The Arlessa was meant ta rally them!” Oghren shouted,

“Why didn’t you just throw a wet blanket on them instead?” This was important, he had a direction, and Connor was off with his smart comment and Oghren’s laughing approval.

Rather than cut across lines and run the risk of disrupting charges in the chaos, Connor dashed only a few strides before letting his feet off the ground and folding himself quick and tight into the body of a bird. Loyalty came singing back to him and flew at his wingtips, calling out the warnings he needed and fortifying him when Connor had to bank hard and twist between the raining storm of angry magic flying at the Nightmare.

He reached the cowering men and felt his irritation begin to grate. Rally them? _These men?_ The very sight of their insignias and crests outraged him. _Help_ Redcliffe _fight?_ He should have taken the other flank and left them here to rot in their own terror, but that was aiding the demon against the Wardens and Connor would not stand for that. If he had to cull their fear then so be it- he just didn’t know how to stomach it.

_That is why I am here._

Kindness…

_I am your greatest virtue: now let me be your greatest strength._

Maker but it took a great deal of _trust_ to agree with the ideas forming in Connor’s mind. Like a cauldron rolling heavily with anger Connor’s mind was opened just enough for Kindness to pour a deep, cooling wealth of knowledge and simple intention into him. Connor’s anger eased, his heart unclenched, and when he formed again as a man in the dark blue and silverite of a Warden Archmage, he was calm enough to face the men and women who had captured him, imprisoned him, tortured him, and ruined him.

If these people truly loved Rowan, then they would slay her demon.

“ _Cowards of House Guerrin!_ ” He shouted, giving his staff a mighty swing around himself and slamming the end down, his gloved hand singing with barrier magic that leapt from the painted gold and domed over and behind him. He felt the Nightmare lift and slam its hind-leg down against him when it felt him address the source of its power, but Connor frankly would not oblige and a fiery eruption of Commander Surana’s indignation settled the matter.

 _“Eamon Guerrin is dead! Teagan Guerrin is disgraced! Rowan Guerrin is ruined! And Isolde has led you like rats to cower in the corner!”_ He shouted at them, howling over the rage of the Archdemon. _“Fearful of your own shadows, serpents without spines to straighten and stand with! Where are the Hounds of Redcliffe; why do you scurry like rats in the refuse of your master’s burning pride!?”_

“Connor!” Kindness deafened him to his mother’s voice and the spirit clung warm and strong around his limbs, its will woven through his words as he took the attention of the soldiers and knights of his family’s keep. The men, the women, the strong, the weary, the brave, the broken, the lost, all of them. He took their attention and he distracted them from their fear, his barrier holding strong against a wave of emerald flames that smote the ground and made it hiss with black smoke he pushed away like dust.

Kindness kept him from acknowledging when his mother in her white and purple gown came stumbling and weeping towards him. She was wild with grief and fear, reaching out to him with shrill sobs and hair flying loose from half her braid. She screamed something to him and grabbed for his staff-arm, his disgust flaring and grip tightening hard on the weapon. His mother sobbed, the soldiers watched, and Loyalty struck.

“I’m sorry.” He meant it for Loyalty but his mother was the one who acknowledged it. A single thread of green light speared her chest and erupted out her back with an incendiary crackle. The Redcliffe militia buckled as one, the spirit ripping what feeble strands of loyalty and dedication the soldiers still felt for their Arlessa and her house from their very hearts. Teagan had failed them politically, Eamon had failed them militarily, and Isolde had failed them emotionally.

This was not Loyalty’s purpose but the spirit took the anger Kindness could not sooth and executed the order decisively, shattering the bond after Connor went so far to argue it down. Let their loyalties to House Guerrin _burn_ , these men deserved better!

“ _Hounds of Redcliffe!_ ” He shouted, raising his staff high with lightning coursing around the shimmering stone at the head. “You rally, or you die! There is no surrender! Your enemy will consume you, drain you to your last breath, and then it will surge beyond this realm to the village below! A river of blood will gush forth from Redcliffe Castle and sweep your families and loved ones away in a wave of violence the likes of which you have seen only once before in your lifetimes- only _worse!_ ”

He felt the shock in them, the terror. Some bared their anger to him, their blame, their memories of a young boy consumed by demons who had committed the same atrocities he dared to stand before them now as a man and recall.

 _“Rally or die!”_ Connor shouted. “House Guerrin is dead, but Redcliffe yet lives! Cast off your chains! Your shame! Your _fear!_ _Rally!_ You are Knights and Warriors of Redcliffe! _Stand!_ Stand for your families! Rise for your honour! _Rise up and FIGHT!”_

“You are the _Arl_ -” His mother choked, a hand to her chest and her body crumpled on the ground before him. The scorn that surged up from Loyalty’s undoing was enough to make the ground brittle and toxic at her knees. And yet she _persisted-_ “Connor Guerrin, my son, you-”

“ _I am Connor!”_ He shouted over her, not even looking at the wretched woman and capturing the soldiers’ attention again before she could _ruin_ this! Kindness filled his mouth with words and he raised his staff up high over his head, magic swirling in pale violet streams around his body. _“I am No Man’s Bastard! Corporal of the Grey and Archmage of **Amaranthine!** I am the Central Link of Loyalty’s Chain and Safe-keeper of Kindness! _At my back you will find victory against the demon that has wrought you low! At my back you will triumph where Fear would have you struck down! At my back you will raise sword and shield and you will defend your lives and freedom! _At my back- you will see **your homes again!** ”_

Fear broke, Hope _roared_ through open mouths and within raised fists.

“ _Stand, Redcliffe!_ ” He shouted, shields rising and arrows finding strings, bolts loaded in crossbows and eyes cleared from the fog of terror. Connor dropped the head of his staff across the back of his hand, letting the weapon flip, then spin, turning it end over end around his palm as magic surged twisted and ready at his fingertips, forming from the Fade itself and swirling about his form, finding his weapon, his will, and ready to let loose. _“Stand- and **FIGHT!**_ ”

He spun with both hands on his staff and felt magic spew in a torrent of powerful will. From the soles of his feet to the crown of his head every emotion he could feel within and around him became part of the spell, deep indigo to pale lavender streaming up the body of his staff, focusing through the Paragon’s Lustre at the head, and exploded forward in a thick snake of livid white lightning.

Fear took the blow against its shoulder and shrieked in the Fade, its domain shrinking rapidly as the burning towers of the castle faded behind it, the demon losing the strength necessary to hold the arena in place. Connor ran to honour his boast and felt Redcliffe’s forces surging behind him, swords and shields raised with their voices howling mad and ready into the fray.

Instead of the Archdemon Connor found his staff out and ready to club a dagger out of his path, twisting the bladed half of his weapon around to slam the scythe head up through the body of a masked Crow. The assassin turned to ash on the upswing, Connor’s feet carrying him through a pivot so when he faced Stephano of House Valisti he landed a sound crack across the murderer’s head, lightning coursing through his body and blowing his heart to pieces.

Fear summoned Darkspawn. Fear summoned spiders. Fear brought forth the walking dead, the images of nightmares these warriors had already broken free from.

 _“Strike them down!_ ” Every minor demon killed was another chink in the Nightmare’s armour. It didn’t matter what the Wardens, the Militia, the Silver Order, what _any of them_ killed so long as they didn’t turn against each other.

His glyphs kept men from falling, healing magic running down his fingers the way blood coursed from steel blades. Redcliffe’s line rushed in and pinched lesser demons against the Grey Wardens. Surana’s magic answered Connor’s when a cannon-blast of scarlet fire caught Fear in the face and opened a shot for Connor’s thunderbolts to rocket against its scaly chest in search of its heart.

Redcliffe Castle’s outer wall crumbled away and fell into the Fade. Sephri’s will bent the unending sky and unfurled fields of green to carry men so they would not tumble from the battle and fall forever through nothing. Mahanon threw trees down to bind the soil, ripping and tearing violently at the fabric of the demon’s domain.

Connor pulled Dennet’s dagger from his side and slashed out with it when the Crow Anira came too close to him. A great silverite shield took the woman out from her unprotected flank and Genevieve laughed brilliantly as she stepped to cover Connor’s left side, her armour shining brilliantly when he recognized her.

“Fifty silvers of wine when we’re finished here!” She cheered to him, giving her shoulders such a swing that the next image of a dashing assassin twisted with rashvine practically shattered against her round shield. _“Dance with me, Connor!_ ”

In the middle of a terrible battle, Connor smiled.

“Anything to please you, _ch_ _é_ _rie!”_

They were winning. They were _winning_. There were over a _hundred people_ fighting a single Nightmare and the archdemon’s wings were ragged from the biting blades and hissing arrows. Every blast of magic had an accompanying cheer from the soldiers of all three factions: the Silver, the Grey, and the Red.

Loyalty flew in circles between Connor and Surana, filtering confidence and inspiration through every dreaming figure that crossed its winding paths. Kindness stayed snug against Connor’s torso, reinforcing his strikes and attending to the others only when Connor could spare time to make the request. Duty remained primarily at Surana’s side, sweeping aside whatever lowly creatures tried to assault the Warden Commander, a shield of unyielding force that stood proud and fortified against whatever the Fade could throw against its companion.

Fewer of Fear’s minions were demons in their own right. They fell like men made of sand and their miserable deaths bolstered morale with every sword-swing and axe-blow. Connor felt Velanna’s will reach high through the air and meet with Mahanon’s and Lady Morrigan’s, determination and knowledge stretching high and looping through the holes and hooks of the shredded barrier between worlds, the three of them weaving and stitching and willing the fabric back together from the very peak of the domain down, down, down.

They were _winning_.

“ _Hawke!”_ How in the _Maker’s Name_ that man had climbed up on the Nightmare’s back Connor _refused_ to find out! Carver’s sword was down between blighted scales, the blade sinking deeper and deeper with welling black blood spilling across his boots, biting between the beast’s neck and shoulder. The weapon was so firmly lodged that even when the Archdemon rose up and slammed its forelimbs on the ground the Warden only laughed in mockery and stood firm, riding it out like a ship on a stormy sea.

“ _Oh no!”_ Carver howled with laughter, _“I missed the real one, you filthy blighter! I’m gonna **enjoy** this!” _ Fear thrashed and tried to shake him off, Connor drawing his staff back and launching a bolt of lightning through the beast’s eye when it swung its horned head low across the battle. The explosion of gore from its damaged face flew so far that Connor could hear Nathaniel howling with glee from the memory of the Western Approach, the demon staggering heavily away from the blow.

 _“YOU’VE GOT IT ON THE ROPES NOW!”_ Howe crowed as the factions hit a fever pitch in the wild fighting. They were _winning! “GUERRIN! SURANA! **FINISH IT!**_ ”

“ _What am I, Howe!?”_ Hawke yelled from the beast’s shoulder, but he took one hand off- _“Chopped liv-!?”_ -and he _fell_.

“ _Carver!_ ” No-

The Archdemon breathed toxic green fire over him and Connor had men behind him who _needed_ the barrier he braced against his staff, staggering to a halt. The flames cleared and Evie was dashing ahead of him, Carver’s armoured body slamming hard on the steps of the crumbled castle. The Archdemon drew its front leg up and over Evie’s head when she dropped down at Carver’s side with her shield raised up, the beast’s cracked talons spread before it _slammed_ -

 _“ **NO!** ”_ Connor dropped his staff: he needed both hands. Kindness screamed in panic to protect them, Loyalty looping through Surana and folding to his will across the field. Surana realized the mistake first.

Kindness reinforced Evie’s shield with a blast of pink light. Loyalty drew Surana’s ice into a jagged cage that pierced the bottom of the archdemon’s foot. Connor’s barrier made its leg buckle and the bone snap when it failed to crush the two wardens.

 _“Connor I’m sorry-_ ” He felt Surana’s magic scramble, Soren’s voice gasping in his mind. Connor’s own will was locked in place with focus he _could not break_ because he _could not lose them_ , but four kinds of magic devoted to a single action meant there was nothing to protect-

The Archdemon’s head dropped and its jaws snapped shut over him.

Connor fell into black, and cold, and the stink of blood, and the wet of shredded flesh. He fell and it consumed him, thick wet currents of death that filled his lungs and reeked of metal and blinded him, deafened him, smothered him.

_This ends! You- I will end you, mage!_

The dragon skin melted. The silverite boiled away. The gorget turned to rot. His skin was ripped open. His magic escaped him. The fire in his chest had burned out long ago, the warmth that had replaced it went cold. Loyalty was gone. Kindness was gone. Duty was gone.

 _“_ Connor- _”_

_She will watch!_

_“Connor!!”_ Rowan was _here_.

_They will escape without you! They will find your cold corpse bloodless and still in the snow!_

_Their precious love, extinguished! Tender friend, smote by fate! Your scars, their guilt! Your trauma, their nightmares!_

_The girl will walk no further than her own despair! Father murdered by your master, brother murdered by her mother, mother despised by her men!_

_Failure! Burden! Irredeemable and intolerable! Dishonour of your Forefathers, Last of an ignoble line! Incompetence Made Flesh, that is what your life has meant!_

_Shy, pathetic, miserable plaything! Weak, deplorable, frightened mageling brat!_

_Disgrace of Redcliffe! Embarrassment of Amaranthine! Mongrel of Ferelden!_

_You were worth **none of this!**_

No.

_Despair! Die! You end **here!**_

No.

_Give! Me! Your! Fear!_

No.

“I was worth it.”

_Do not delude yourself in your final moments! Worthless creature: **murderer!**_

“That was never my fault. I was a victim of cruel old men.”

_And a victim, a plaything, a discarded and broken prop is all you have ever been!_

“Until I left Skyhold, yes. Until I started living the life that kept being spared.”

_Spared when so many others died!_

“Spared so I could save so many more. My magic healed soldiers at Skyhold, and eased their final passage into the Maker’s arms. I soothed the weary on the Western Approach, snatched my mentor by the hand to save him before he could fall into-”

_Any other could have done what you did!_

“I saved his life. He’s married now. His wife is redeemed among the Grey Wardens.”

_Die!_

“No, I like these memories… I’ll go through them first.”

_DIE!_

“I already told you no. I made Genevieve smile in the Deep Roads. I made Carver laugh in the desert.”

_FEAR YOUR END AND PERISH!_

“I am not afraid to die, only sorry.”

_DESPAIR AND **DIE!**_

“In my heart burned an unquenchable flame, all-consuming and never satisfied. From the Fade I was crafted and to the Fade I always returned, each night in dreams so that I always remembered what I was told the Maker cursed in me. But that flame no longer burns: Andraste blessed me instead with love. I saved them. I am warm…”

_You are DEAD!_

“I am _warm_...”

With a blossom of soft radiant light, Fear fell on Duty’s sword: laid low by Kindness, heckled by Faith, berated by Loyalty, chastised by Hope, and thrust aside by Love.

The Nightmare ended in a pillar of echoing light and Connor was warm.


	43. Aftermath

“Soren-”

“No!”

“Soren, you must go _now_.” _No!_ He refused, he would not! He pushed forward and Morrigan caught him hard in the chest with both hands, shoving him away. Somehow his will bent to hers with the shove, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from trying again! “ _Soren!_ ”

“ _I won’t let this happen!_ ”

The domain had collapsed. The Fade had swirled and spun through chaos before the willpower of the gathered mages had solidified it again, wiping away the burning ash, the crumbled courtyard, the steps to nowhere. The sky was golden and bright, stained by the black city and falling about them across a rolling field of woven green grass. The Fade was calm, the air dancing with spirits of a dozen different natures, and the lesser demons had fled with the death of their master.

The Veil itself, without the Fear Demon to exploit its tears, had fallen neatly into the hands of three knowledgeable mages. Velanna, Mahanon, and Morrigan had begun the work to repair the tattered fragments and the barrier itself had started to re-weave its pieces once begun. The Fade was _calm_ and their way home was open.

Open, persistent even. The route to the waking world was not a simple doorway or road out across the abyss. The three factions were already dwindling in number because it was as simple now as thinking too hard about where you were standing to slip back to the proper side of things. The Grey, the Silver, and the Red had no more enmity to spill against each other, and they faded and dropped out of sight. Arlessa Isolde, Nathaniel, and Oghren had already gone. Sephri had vanished with them but her Free Marcher field remained behind.

“You cannot help him from this side,” Morrigan told him, her hands braced against Soren’s armour and then sliding up to push his helmet away in the Fade.

“Let me _try_ -” He pushed again and she stopped him. Morrigan touched his face and he did not want that. She kissed him, fast and sharp, and it _angered_ him! “ _Move!_ ”

“The demon is _dead.”_ She told him harshly and Soren appreciated _that_ far more than her worries or her kindness. “Either you heal his body or his soul will vanish in the Fade. Soren, _go!_ ”

They were waking up. Dreamers were vanishing where they stood. The men and women of all three factions were quickly dwindling in number, returning to their true selves on the other side of the Veil.

Past Morrigan’s shoulder Soren could see the few remaining Wardens still lingering in the Fade.

The burning, blighted dragon had snapped Connor up in its jaws, devoured him completely, and minutes later had finally died on Hawke’s sword in a storm of black sand. The demon’s last effort had been to try and rip Carver’s soul to pieces as if he’d planted his blade in the skull of a true Archdemon, but Soren had not allowed it. Hawke was still holding his sword with both hands, the point driven down through the humanoid green body of the Fear Demon and spearing its tentacle-sprouted head. Hawke’s silverite armour was weeping blood, thick beads dripping from every piece, and his body was rattling with nerves that kept numbly questioning if he was even still alive. The Warden had not moved yet, no doubt he simply could not.

Hawke had slain the demon and from the geyser of disintegrating magic Connor had staggered two steps out, holding his sister’s hand and moving in a blind daze. He’d uttered the words _‘Protect her’_ to the first person to reach him, and then fallen to his knees with his head hanging. Bouclier was still holding the girl, shield on the ground and arms swung around Rowan’s body as the child kicked and sobbed and screamed trying to reach her brother.

Connor was still there, but barely. He looked like he was _burning_. Black smoke was rolling off his bloody skin, his clothes peeling and rotting away. Fragments of thought kept scattering from him, and his dazed expression yielded nothing. Connor’s spirits would not come near to him and the two spiralling orbs of pink and green just swept across the grass and looped overhead, practically ignoring him. Morrigan would not let Soren approach him, and the only Warden who could was Velanna.

Soren could see from here that her magic and her voice were doing _nothing_.

“I don’t know where to find him-” Soren finally admitted, failing again to push past Morrigan. “I don’t have time to search the castle. If I don’t help him here then I can’t-”

“He is _next_ to you,” she interrupted harshly. “I found him and I dragged him to you. When you wake up you will find him laying to your right, now _wake up!”_ She had-?

“But how did you-?”

Morrigan snarled at him and slammed both hands into his shoulders, knocking Soren off his feet.

_“Wake up!”_

He gasped cold winter air and opened his eyes within the shell of his helmet. It was dark and close and a rank mixture of hot sweat and cold air. When he moved metal scraped and grated on the pebbled ground, his body bound with metal plates and heavy ribbons that held him flat on his sore back. He scratched his gloved hand on the bloodied ground of the castle courtyard, eyes staring at the grey winter sky that as domed impossibly wide and cold above him. The bowl of the castle walls and ramparts grasped circle of the grey sky and Soren felt _pain_ thrust through his gut. He kicked one foot, still on his back, and brought his hands together over a mound of gauze and linen bound over his armour and tucked under his robe.

Soren closed his eyes, called on magic that now felt _so far away_ and mended what pained him. He did not do a good or thorough job of it, he told skin to seal and pieces to push back together. He hurt, but he stopped bleeding. He raised his arms and twisted heavily on the ground, planting his right arm on the bloodied ground and forcing himself to breathe deep and _move_. It was no longer just an act of will, if he could not figure out _how_ to move then it could not be done.

“ _Connor-_ ” The battle was over: the men were done fighting. Some of them were kneeling around the body next to him and Soren ignored the mantle of his command to drag himself on his knees to Connor’s side instead.

It didn’t even look like him. This man was laying on a Redcliffe cloak, lightly clothed in a tattered, filthy linen tunic stained with blood, vomit, and filth. His hair was too dark and too long, matted and thick with stale grease that trailed all the way down to his shoulders. His closed eyes were blackened and sunk deep like his pale cheeks, teeth bloodied and lips waxy white. His face was combed with a thick red beard that twisted unevenly without care down his throat.

His throat was marked with half-healed pink marks where he had been strangled and cut. There were chafe-marks, raw and ugly at the base of his throat and wearing against the beard under his chin.

Of the soldiers gathered over him one in Silver Order arraignments and wearing a medic’s green badge had her kit open and hands feeling quick and fast for a pulse or breath to prove there was anything still present to save. She had a small glass vial tucked between her fingers with a bright yellow substance swishing inside, but hadn’t given it to him yet.

“I don’t know where to start, Commander,” she breathed out as Soren settled himself on his knees and just stared at what was before him. He needed that moment as much as she did. “We were warned about poisons- but the beatings? The demon? I can’t-”

“His heart?”

“It’s _so fast-_ ”

“Breathing?”

“Barely, ser!”

“Give him the draught, it may open his lungs.”

“ _It-_ ” She pried out the cork and worked Connor’s mouth open as she spoke. “-did this to him!”

_Master your fear, Mage._

Soren took a sharp breath of cold air, made it run deep, and exhaled as slowly as he could before bringing his hands up.

_You are a healer and conduit of spirits. This is your duty and you will not falter._

It was good to have Duty return from its frolicking venture with the other spirits. The familiar presence restored some of his resolve and, yes, it helped Soren hold his fear firmly back.

He spun his hands and a web of liquid light traced and marked the ground, cradling the wounded and flagging body in front of him and surging with warmth. Warmth which soaked through his skin, physically heating flesh that bore many half-healed marks of abuse and control. Soren’s magic began probing to find the worst wounds, the reasons for _why_ he was dying.

“Give him your water. _All of it._ ” He was dying for the same reason why his gums were white, why his eyes were glassy and swollen. Embrium had opened his body’s blood vessels so wide for so long that without the constant supply his flesh was limp and constricted, as if he’d been bled dry. There was a terrible _weight_ of fluid squeezing his lungs shut, collapsing the delicate branches and flooding them to make breathing impossible.

Connor’s starved gut had gnawed away at its own flesh, the taint a monstrous burden to foist on a man whose body had not eaten properly in weeks. Soren placed his palms solidly around the Warden’s ribs, spilling healing, knitting magic through his flesh and trying to restore the muscles that had raised and opened his lungs before. He closed his eyes to help focus and find the paths and channels to coax the fluid out of his chest and _anywhere_ else.

He drew the glyphs and patterns to circulate the blood his heart was hammering frantically trying to push at a dismal pace. Small things, delicate enough to sink into skin and thread between the veins, a chain of miniscule connections meant to ease without tearing or bruising.

The water poured down his throat was followed by a second skin, his stomach swelling and giving Soren a place to work from. He could not heal the gut if it was still caked in the poisons that had started this! Something to _imbue_ with magic, something to make _sing_ with the power to mend what had been burned, what had been knotted, been constricted.

“Let me help them-” the sudden, tired voice of Warden Lavellan who joined them. Soren didn’t feel magic intrude on his casting, he felt spell-power weave under his own body, opening his own mind a little further to the tug of his own spells. Mahanon helped _him_ help Connor.

“I need more elfroot,” the medic across from him called and there was a flurry of quiet voices:

“That can’t be him.”

“We were in the Fade? We were in the _Fade_ with him!”

“ _Warden Guerrin?”_

Magic in his blood. Magic in his gut. Magic in his ribs, in his lungs, in his heart to steady its rhythm, in his skin to stop it freezing, in his throat to keep it open, in his-

A sharp white pain struck across his thoughts and Soren grit his teeth, his magic spinning cold but _low_ in his chest, draining quickly. He held his spells, grappled with their interlocking threads and critically aligned symbols, and did not lose a _single one_. The day had been long and the battle hard- his magic would _not_ fail him now!

He blinked hard and realized there was no point. The medic was forced to back away when the light forming and linking through her abused patient became too much to work under. It shimmered and radiated out, Soren’s will was now bent hard to the task of reigning in the excess energy flying away as that light in the first place. He redirected it back down into the neglected task of quieting pain and easing the fluids congealed in _all the wrong places_.

The multitude of conjuring threads wound and looped around his fingers began to burn. No one spell was overwhelming but he held each pattern solidly in his mind and cast the next web of delicate lights out. He knotted and twisted the anchoring marks, tethering spells to spells to free up the joints of his aching fingers and clear paths for the next weaving layer of delicate power.

“Someone tell the Commander that Redcliffe has surrendered.” _Go away_.

“Do we withdraw to the village? They’ve all laid down their swords, so-” _Shut up._

“Arl Bryland needs to know if-” _Agh-!_

 _“_ If Connor Guerrin dies because you kept yacking and broke the Healer’s focus _I’ll break both your damned knees!_ ” Thank you, Oghren…

Duty spun hard and fast down his arms and Soren felt the pain abate, the silverite of his gauntlets either cooling down or his skin too numb to feel it. Numb was better than hurt. Hurt was a distraction, numb was simply absent.

“ _Connor-!_ ” Hawke’s screaming voice.

“Commander, I am here.” Eyes still closed Soren felt the glyphs and patterns unfold past the circle cast under Connor’s body. A higher order mark of restoration was woven across the central foci and five cardinal pillars were built by Velanna’s will to prop up the fraying edges of three linking chains. His heart was no longer beating on its own, it was the compulsion of the spells woven by two healers and Mahanon’s support. The glyphs stacked, rotating slowly with their parts spinning independently, strands of will and chains of intent lashing the marks together in a clockwork array of light.

_He lingers in the Fade._

What were Connor’s spirits doing? Why weren’t they helping?

_Loyalty is quiet. Kindness speaks of the glowing wonders of the Fade and the adventures to be had once his pain is ended._

Tell Kindness that Connor belonged to the _living_ and was not _meant_ for the Fade yet! Soren would not _let_ him die! Tell Loyalty that the Warden Commander of Ferelden would _not_ allow him to give up _now!_

“You will _breathe._ ”

_You are being witnessed._

“I don’t _care_. He will _breathe!_ ”

_Pride of Pride-_

“If you will not help me, Duty then _shut up_ and strike Pride across the mouth for interrupting me now!”

Connor would not die, Pride would make _no deals_ , Soren would bring him back from the brink and _that would be the **end of it!**_

He pushed with his legs, arms raised and enrobed in cutting strands of light, and stood with his feet spread and braced. He could not gesture or swing his arms to guide the light filling the courtyard, spellmarks cutting across the ground and climbing the stairs, wreathes of magic blooming like great flowers and twisting branches of sustaining, nourishing, enriching power. The cold magic spinning in his chest drained so low he could not breathe, eyes clouded with white and senses dazzled.

He was a mage. He had walked from the Circle of Magi a readied student of Creation because it was in _healing_ that there was _reverence_ and the respect of one whose powers held life and death in each hand. Primal fire had its purpose in sheer utility, the conjuring of fear and respect under the hammer-fall of martial power. But _healing_ was where the obedience of fear became the respect and trust of fledgling loyalty. The hands that burned before they soothed with greater skill, the call to arms bolstered by the care of flesh and mind. He was a _healer_ a companion of _Duty_ and his Warden would _not die!_

Soren did not tear the veil, he cut it _._ He struck with the precision of a fine razor and slit the fine fabric of the world, splitting down in a straight and even line. Cold swept down through his chest, replenishing his power and singing through his ears. Cold liquid magic swelled in his chest, pouring like water over his shoulders and spinning down his elbows and hands, flying from his spread fingers. Light bloomed and rose high to fill Redcliffe Castle like a blinding caldera of power. He burned no one, harmed nothing, mastered fear and forced death to hold.

He saw two men standing in the Fade, one tattered and bloodied and barely realized, the other standing calm with hands behind his back, shaved head inclined past the weaker mage and attention focused on the clean cut through the Veil. Spirits danced and spun between the two of them, pinpoints of light that danced and sung their dissonant thoughts to one another.

Morrigan stepped where Soren could see her, grabbed Connor by his arm, and dashed towards the tear.

Duty, wearing the face and armour of Knight-Commander Greagoir of Kinloch Hold, slammed its metal fist into the face of the looming presence, shocking the Fade with its literal delivery of Soren’s boast.

Soren pulled all of the magic burning his hands to one side, his left arm enrobed in flaying pain that kept the arena burning. He flung his right hand through the Veil, took Morrigan’s arm by the wrist, and pulled her back to the world where she belonged. Connor’s spirit changed as soon as it passed from one world to the other, from the image of a man on his dying breath to the single spark of power missing from the tapestry of magical energy focusing on his body.

_It is done._

Duty reaffirmed itself to him, the Veil sealed itself closed, the magic erupted in a cascade of realized intent, and the Hero of Ferelden fainted dead off his feet.

* * *

 

The Warden Commander did not die of his injuries or debilitating over-exertion. He was brought to the occupied tavern and acting headquarters of the army to recover. Upon waking from his traumatic expulsion of magic, he was cavalier about the fact that his powers had succeeded in warping the silverite of his pauldron and breastplate, and complained vocally over the fact that half his robe had been incinerated by the transfer of too much magical focus from both arms to only one. It was unclear how affected he was by the debilitating pain of his left arm, for he spoke easily but displayed great hesitation at the prospect of motion or gesture.

Treat with a generous application of elfroot jelly and wrap burns with linen strips soaked in a mild solution of processed lyrium and distilled water. General fatigue and fatigue from spell-casting required only proper food and bed-rest. Expected recovery time was three to five days for his energy. His arm would run at least two weeks.

The surrender of Castle Redcliffe happened cleanly. The Captain of the militia had stated that the battle was over upon waking up from the demon’s influences. The Knights of Redcliffe had lost their own Captain, and cast down their shields without prompting when reminded that the Arl of Denerim was dead, the Arl of Redcliffe was absent, and the Arlessa was not to be found anywhere in the keep. They surrendered peacefully, and resisted nothing when Arl Bryland’s army combed through the castle and secured it. The only thing the men and women asked for was the fate of Warden Guerrin.

Assorted injuries and required treatments. Elfroot-based poultices and creams necessary for most abrasions and wounds. Snowdrop oil, deathroot, and embrium applications limited to instances of severe pain or distress. Many came to the tavern to receive treatment.

The Arlessa of Denerim was not found in Redcliffe Castle after the surrender of the militia and knights. She was discovered when she emerged alone from the base of the ruined windmill five miles away from the keep. She was apprehended quickly by the soldiers still guarding the entrance, and was dragged unceremoniously back to the village. She was uninjured but maintained an almost perpetual hysteria, screaming that the soldiers had raped her daughter and murdered her son and orchestrated a great betrayal of her husband. Her shrill voice was unpleasant. Her crude accusations were also unpleasant. Arlessa Isolde was unpleasant. She was kept on the second floor of the tavern in a room guarded by two soldiers.

Treat with steeped mint and jasmine oil tea for an indefinite period to calm hysteria and discourage raving. When the tea’s potency begins to wear, the practice of indifference proved effective at culling the noise.

Master Arainai returned to Redcliffe Village the morning after the surrender. After his face was subjected to important magical healing by Warden Velanna, the upkeep of his recovering eyes was very important. However, simply getting him to settle down to the Warden’s healing touch was itself a struggle as he would not sit by the tavern’s fire.

“I shall- yes, I certainly will sit down, but first-”

“Master Arainai, your vision needs care if it is to recover.”

“ _Thank you_ but first I am going to take my nephew to see his-”

“Master Arainai.” Treat with cleansing wash of several tinctures and oils, apply separated elfroot essence and wyvern enzyme to edge of eyelids with a fine copper rod. Monitor swelling of eyelids and soothe skin with cold compress. By that evening, his vision had begun to return.

“ _Father-!_ ”

Young Master Kieran: abrasions on much of his body. Mild symptoms of hypothermia. Severe cough. Chafing and raw skin from poor care. His lower arm was set and bound, and against his recommendations the Warden Commander immediately healed the wound with magic which caused him considerable strain.

“Warden Commander, it would be prudent of you to limit the use of magic to only the most extreme-”

“Enough, Ansera.” If his meaning was not understood then no, it was not enough to merely say it once. He altered the form of his statement, pointing out the likelihood of increased pain in his arm if he insisted on bending it. “Ansera! I understand and I do not _care_ , now leave or be silent!”

He did not leave. It was necessary that he attend to young master Kieran’s wounds and condition, as well as ensure the Warden Commander’s arm, now improperly bent around his son’s back to help hug him, would not rupture its blisters.

The Commander held his son very tightly and for a very long time, kissing his cheeks and his eyes and his hair and his mouth. They both wept a great deal, and Surana’s distress increased dramatically when the boy asked if it was safe to cry now because the ordeal was over. There was more to be said but Jylan was asked by Lady Morrigan to see that bath water and a hot meal were prepared for her son, tasks not expected of him personally but still under his authority to see fulfilled.

Young Master Kieran’s treatment required warm food, a hot bath, and fresh, warm clothes. The close proximity of both parents healed many things the elfroot could not.

Lady Morrigan herself, though greatly fatigued and unwell, never permitted him to see to her needs. She remained with the Warden Commander, her son, and Master Arainai on the second floor. It was reasonable to assume that warm food, hot bathwater, and bedrest were also made available to her.

“What happened?” Warden Hassick asked of him, and he opened his explanation with- “No! To Warden _Connor!_ What happened to him? Where is he?” It was explained.

Despite her mother’s harsh claims, the Arlessa’s mage daughter was not injured, nor imprisoned, nor violated in their care. Rowan Guerrin was assigned to the direct oversight of Warden Bouclier, who was patient and kind to the girl. Her symptoms of hysteria were far milder than her mother’s and fueled by the traumatic attacks on her home, the grief over the death in battle of her father, her mother’s abandonment and imprisonment, and the fate of Warden Guerrin.

Treat with samples of honey when available, provide space in the large lower cupboard near the apothecary supplies. Practice misdirection when questioned.

“The last words he spoke to me were to protect her, Jylan. I know she is hiding in here somewhere!”

“Nearly a quarter of an hour has passed since I last laid eyes on Lady Rowan. May I offer you a seat and warm drink?”

“No. You can tell me where she is!”

“She is hiding, Warden Bouclier, you said as much yourself.”

“ _Jylan!_ ”

Provide rose-hip tea with chamomile. Procure wine and distilled spirits from village for careful administration. Walk softly.

The battle was over, the army had no reason to linger for Redcliffe Village could not support being swollen to twice its size in the middle of winter. The tavern became much calmer as a result.

Warden Hestel and Warden Constable Oghren split the Grey Wardens: Hestel would walk the north road towards Highever and home, the Constable took his men eastbound to follow the Imperial Highway towards Denerim before returning home to Amaranthine.

Captain Renth and six Silver Order soldiers remained in Redcliffe as a vanguard for Surana, his mistress, and son, the rest were sent home with Warden Hestel. Arl Bryland also kept a vanguard of eight men before sending his army home-ward bound with Constable Oghren’s forces. Neither Arl left Redcliffe because two days after the surrender, the King arrived.

Commander Surana, Warden Nathaniel, Warden Velanna, Warden Carver, Warden Genevieve, Warden Hassick, Warden An’eth, and Master Arainai remained in Redcliffe’s tavern to represent the Grey Wardens. Jylan maintained his impromptu duties as the townsfolk were restored to their homes in the village.

King Alistair and Arl Teagan Guerrin of Redcliffe arrived from Denerim two days after the surrender. They came with fifty armed soldiers but there was no town to liberate and His Majesty was disinclined to chastise Amaranthine or South Reach for their actions. Arl Teagan took his niece up in an embrace not unlike the clutching desperation Commander Surana had shown his own son. He wept when he saw her, stroked her dark hair, soothed her frightened tears, and kissed her face many, many times with King Alistair taking slow, careful stock of everything that had happened in Redcliffe.

Arl Teagan was a cowed man. He walked with small steps and was a shadow that followed his King. There were meetings and discussions and conversations, none of which involved Jylan or took him from his main priority.

“You there, elf.” It was a distraction when the reedy man spoke to him. He was carrying a jug of hot water and it was important that the water remain at a steaming temperature for its purpose. He would complete his task first. “Elf! I called to you.”

The human lord grabbed his arm, turned him quickly and some of the water sloshed. It stung his hand and it would have to be doused with cold water, meaning the hot water would cool to the point where it would have to be re-heated. The time required to tend the irritated skin and reheat the water would mean the medicinal powders to be combined together would come a quarter hour later than intended.

“Maker’s Breath, what are you?” the Arl swore with dark bags of fatigue under his eyes.

“I am Tranquil.” Jylan had been moving from the kitchens in the very back of the tavern towards the front where the stairs led to the second floor. He had not yet reached the front room. He was much closer to the kitchens and their exterior door than the front where the few remaining people would gather later. This was a very out of the way place to speak, and a quiet hour in the early evening.

“Then you will follow orders, good. I am looking for Compounder Ansera and you will take me to him.”

“I am Compounder Ansera.” The human became displeased with him. It was a strange reaction considering his army had been crushed and his keep brought to ruins, his brother killed and King holding him on a tight emotional leash.

“That- alright then. Where is my nephew?”

“What is your purpose in asking?” The man became aghast.

“What insolence! Everything that has happened has spiralled so wildly out of control, and now this? Eamon and Connor and Isolde all-! Where is he?”

“What is your purpose in asking?” He repeated, because he had not been understood.

“To speak with him! To comfort him! To explain what in Andraste’s Name has happened!”

“No.” And he walked back the way he had come towards the kitchen. He needed to tend to his scalded hand and re-heat the hot water in the jug. It had to be steaming when mixed with the powders. It would not steam for much longer.

“ _‘No’_?” Arl Teagan repeated and grabbed him by the arm again, turning him harshly. “What do you mean, no!? Tranquil, you will take me to my nephew.”

“No.”

“Why not, you dead-hearted thing?”

“Because his injuries could only have come from torture. Because he is unable to speak. Because others are better suited to the task of comfort.”

The Arl slapped him, a response he had not considered as it had not happened to him since Kinloch Hold. Open palm and across his face. It did not wound him, merely stung and caused much of what was in the jug to spill on the floor. Tranquil were not to talk back against the Templars or Enchanter-ranked mages. Tranquil were not to speak unless spoken to. Tranquil were not to act unless told to. The water would have to be cleaned up before he tended to his scalded hand and heated more water for the jug.

“You will remember where your contemptable position leaves you when speaking to me, Tranquil. You are commanded to take me to my nephew.” He looked at the human who had hit him.

“No.” He stepped back when the man tried to hit him again. “I am employed by the Arling of Amaranthine. I have no compulsion to obey another lord.”

“Surana _gave me_ your name so that you would take me to Connor!” The man yelled because he was angry and it was unfortunate that the tavern was so quiet because it was unlikely that he would raise his voice in this way if there were others to witness his behaviour. “Obey your Arl or I will have you dragged out into the snow and beaten like a rat! This insolence is _shameful!_ ”

“I am Tranquil. I experience neither fear nor shame. My answer is unchanged.”

“And what reason does a creature that feels _nothing_ have for denying the man you just called your Lord and employer? Do you believe me to be _bluffing?_ You are not something Surana will fight me over!”

“Regardless of my spiritual state or the Arl of Amaranthine’s choices, I am Freeman of Ferelden born in the Teyrnir of Gwaren. I choose not to obey your command.”

“Why _not?_ ”

To be dragged out into the snow and beaten would be very unpleasant. It would ruin his clothing, and cause him difficulty breathing or eating or walking about if he was beaten too harshly in any one place on his body. It would delay Connor’s medicine by nearly an hour or more.

There was a sound argument in agreeing to avoid the beating so as to aid Connor sooner by bringing him the required dosage of herbs at as close to the proper time as he was able now that he already had to factor in the water to be cleaned up, the scalding on his hand, and the need to reheat more water. Warden Hawke would protect Connor from this man because Arl Teagan would not reasonably dare slap a Grey Warden.

But the proper decision was to refuse to allow the Arl access to Connor’s bedside. Arlessa Isolde had demanded the same thing many times a day since her capture and been denied. Warden Carver had been firmly against her presence. Warden Genevieve had been outraged at the suggestion. Lady Rowan was permitted to see her brother. Arl Teagan was not. He had been sent to Jylan with a request and Jylan had denied that request. This interaction had run its course.

It was preferable to be beaten by the Arl than to take him to Connor. Practical, no. But preferable.

It had not been practical of him to leave the Guildsman in Amaranthine and journey to Vigil’s Keep. But it had been preferable. It had not been practical of him to leave Vigil’s Keep and accompany the Warden Commander to Denerim, but it had been preferable to remaining behind with no information on Connor’s whereabouts or condition. It had been neither practical nor safe of him to continue on with the army from Denerim and arrive in Redcliffe as the village was under siege, but it had been preferable to knowing his skills as a compounder were not being used to help his friend.

It was preferable to be beaten by the Arl than to take him to Connor.

“Because my friend was tortured by his family, and you are one of them. Because the water for the medicines only I am skilled enough to prepare for him, you have caused to grow too cold to be of use with your harassment. Because you are violent, loud, and unpleasant. My answer is unchanged, and beating me will yield no further results for you.”

“On the contrary!” Warden Howe’s voice interrupted from the kitchen door behind him. “It’ll get both his fucking arms broken is what it’ll do.” Loud footsteps from more than one person came from the kitchen. The Arl was displeased as Jylan was overcome by Grey Wardens.

“If this thing will not obey your Commander’s order to take me to my nephew, then I leave it to the Grey Wardens to discipline it properly.”

“Did the Warden Commander say that exactly,” Nathaniel Howe questioned harshly, “Or did he wave you off and tell you to ask Ansera if it meant so much to you?”

 _“Lethallin,”_ Warden An’eth’s voice spoke next to him and Jylan turned when his shoulder was touched by her. His hood was still up, her eyes clouding with confusion when she touched his chin and made him turn his head a few degrees. “Did- did he _hit_ you?”

“Yes.” She spluttered at him in outrage, caught between two languages and not saying much in either. Between the broken words he found her question and answered it: “Because I am Tranquil.”

He was embraced by her and it was pleasant. There was little cause for the Wardens to wear much armour, only their tunics and light weapons, thus it was not hurtful to be embraced by one of them. Warden Howe sent the Arl away and Jylan returned to the kitchen with Warden An’eth to tend to his hand and heat the water.

When the water began to boil he poured it back into the jug, and wrapped the handle and belly of the clay pot in a towel to protect his hands. If the water was hotter then he would have more time to carry it from the kitchen, down the hall, across the common room, to the stairs, up to the second floor, down this hall, around the corner, to the third room. An’eth remained attentive and in his company.

“That took you a really long time, did something-? Athras?” He could put the jug down on the table and note that it was no longer boiling, but it was steaming and swirling too heavily to be administered. It would have to cool, but only just enough. He waited for it to cool and watched the process. “He just went to fetch water, what’s with that look?”

“Connor’s uncle attacked him and Nathaniel put a stop to it.” The water was still steaming too heavily.

“I- _what?_ ” The water was still steaming too heavily. “Ansera, turn around!” The water had not finished cooling. Warden Hawke left the bedside and approached him. “Just let me get a look at you, or maybe take the hood off?” He removed his hood but remained focused on the water as it was more important than the red blush across his skin. “What’s the _matter_ with people in this village? What the hell did you say to make him go off like that?” The water had nearly finished cooling. A portion of it was poured into the wide belly of a ceramic tea-pot, and the appropriate measurements of shredded elfroot, white lotus extract, and snow-drop oil were added to the water, which was then mixed with a copper rod. When fully combined, the necessary but inappropriate quantity of embrium powder was spooned into the hot mixture. Three spoons. Four. Five.

“We didn’t hear the start of it,” An’eth spoke and he remained focused on his task. “We just came out and heard Jylan telling the Arl more words in a breath than he usually does in a day. Howe wouldn’t let it stand.”

“As long as no one tells Connor about it when he wakes up. He’ll lose his fucking mind if he finds out his uncle put a hand on him like that.”

This was an inappropriate quantity of embrium powder. The typical dosage for one Grey Warden to sleep calmly through the night was one quarter teaspoon. Six whole teaspoons were added to the pot. This was the only concentration that provided the necessarily relief to keep Connor’s lungs open. It was a brew so potent that he had neither moved nor woken up in four days. It was inappropriate. It was the end result of many weeks spent abusing the reagent’s purpose and abilities. It was an abuse of knowledge designated for a specific task. It was wrong.

Three more drops of snow-drop oil were added to the steaming pot, and then he placed the ceramic lid on top.

“I denied the Arl his request to see Warden Guerrin.” Now that he had completed his primary task, he could answer Warden Hawke’s original question, although it meant interrupting his conversation with Warden An’eth. “He misconstrued my status as a compounder for that of a typical elven servant and disciplined me for my refusal.” He poured an even measure of the medicine into a wooden cup, and lifted the vessel with both hands when it was two thirds full, one below and one around, to ensure he would not spill it as he walked.

“ _Bullshit._ ” Warden Hawke followed him back to the bed. “I’m right sick of that ‘ _because he’s an elf_ ’ excuse. Any bastard who so much as _lifts_ a hand to hit you again’ll find my fists beating their brains out for it.”

“I will discredit your words as sarcasm, or otherwise express caution against physical violence.” Only unpleasant consequences would follow a Grey Warden’s assault on an Arl, even a dislikeable one like Arl Guerrin.

“I’ll disregard your bloody caution and tell you I fucking mean what I say. If Connor can’t protect you I sure as fuck will.” Jylan chose not to respond, noting the temperature of the mixture in his hands before proceeding with his primary task.

“Do you need anything else, Lethallin?”

“No, Warden Athras. I require nothing at present, thank you.” She left after that, but Warden Hawke did not.

Warden Hawke had maintained a constant presence in the room since Connor’s return to the village. There was only one bed and he slept primarily in the wooden chair next to it or on the cot put together for him last night. When Warden Bouclier was not minding Lady Rowan or the young girl visited her brother’s bedside, the Captain was also frequently in the room. Warden Hawke was not unwashed, but his face was brushed with black where he had not shaved recently. He did not wear his armour, but black trousers and shirt and a dark blue tunic made of wool. With a long dagger at his belt and a simple griffon pin at his throat he did not seem the same intimidating wall of valour that had saved many lives against Redcliffe’s demon.

The room was warm and the bed cradled with blankets, several of which had been procured from other rooms. Hanging just overhead and painted on the floor underneath it were several securely fastened glyphs, their white light gently humming with marks of warding and protection to keep Connor’s mind from entering the Fade. He had endured far too much and it was openly agreed that he must rest without being consciously aware of his situation. He was asleep. Truly, deeply asleep.

Connor had been bathed and dressed in fresh white linen each day since being brought to the tavern. His long red hair had been trimmed from where it had grown to his shoulders and cut back to chin-length. The state of his facial hair had caused great distress amongst the Wardens who visited him, however his sister did not know him clean-shaven. It was deemed unwise to pull him from the bed for the simple act of shaving him, especially given the tender nature of his throat and difficulties breathing.

Of his injuries and conditions, they varied by severity and treatment. The Warden Commander’s magic had targeted the extreme weakness and symptoms of the embrium abuse, dragging most of Connor’s internal organs back from the brink of complete shut-down. Surana had physically restored the walls and connections of many internal parts of his heart and lungs until they could function again- but they still required the upkeep of the embrium which had damaged them in the first place. The process of establishing the necessary concentration of embrium had taken two days. The process of slowly reducing that concentration had only just begun.

Connor’s ability to breathe was still compromised without significant quantities of the reagent in his blood to thin it out. His lungs were otherwise prone to gathering dangerous amounts of fluid that would drown him. His skin moved from pale and warm to deeply flushed and hot when the reagent began to wear off, causing him to lose heat and tremble violently. The treatment was embrium, with the other reagents in the mixture added to help him heal so that the toxic powder could be whittled down and Connor slowly weaned off of it.

His next greatest issue was his weight. Connor had been healthy and physically strong upon leaving Vigil’s Keep a month and a half ago, his Warden nature and lifestyle all but ensuring he would swiftly and easily build muscle and heal quickly from injuries. But the Vigil fed its Wardens roasted meats, platters of cheese, piles of vegetables, and stews and potages and baked meals that allowed them to remain so healthy. Connor had been poisoned. And on top of that, starved.

He could survive on broth and thin soups, but combined with the embrium’s ravaging effects he would not make a full recovery on such a bare diet. He had not woken up in four days and thus he could not chew, could not be asked to swallow, could not tell them if he felt a craving that would tell them whether he needed fruit or fish or cream or meat over any other item they could give him.

His body had begun to wither, his skin pale and thin, muscles constantly held stiff even when he was in his deepest sleep. His body was hungry and the taint meant he lost weight faster than a normal person should have. He was not in a state of outright starvation, but he would not gain any of it back until he could eat again.

He could not eat again until he woke up, and Connor had not done that in at least four days, perhaps longer: he had not been conscious during the attack on the castle. No one who had been near his cell in days was still alive to tell them what had been done to him.

Jylan gave him the medicine in a slow, steady stream, working his fingers down Connor’s throat to ensure he swallowed. The snow drops would clot bleeding and sooth his straining muscles. The elfroot would do its many duties. The white lotus would purify his kidneys. The embrium would keep him alive.

When Connor had swallowed all of it, Warden Hawke took his seat next to the bed and reached under the blankets, looking for Connor’s hand. It was how he often sat to watch over him, although there was very little to look for except the gently spinning marks of expulsion and safekeeping wafting overhead.

“You don’t like giving it to him, do you?” Jylan did not immediately recognize the words as being spoken to him. It was not uncommon for Warden Hawke to speak to Connor as he slept. He paused half-way back to the table to return and wash the cup in his hand, and turned to face the Grey Warden who was watching him.

“I am indifferent to the specific nature of my work.” He answered.

“But things can still bother you about it, can’t they?” Jylan considered the question.

“I do not understand your meaning.”

“You’re giving him the same poisons that made him this way,” Warden Hawke told him and Jylan considered it unlikely that the Grey Warden would strike him for interrupting.

“I am not.” So he interrupted. Warden Hawke did not see this as reason to stand up and approach him for a disciplinary slap. “Embrium is not by nature poisonous, it is by nature addictive. To cease the administration of embrium when Connor’s body is accustomed to such a high dosage would invariably place him back in the same dire situation the Warden Commander rescued him from once already. The combination of herbs and oils added to the embrium have balanced properties intended to build up and restore much of his flagging strength and internal health. I am a Second Level Compounder of the Formari Guildsman, I have properly administered the embrium as a reagent to combat Connor’s symptoms, not as a poison.”

Warden Hawke watched him for what extended into a longer than average amount of time. It was his turn to speak and Jylan did not disengage from the conversation.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you string that many words together at a time.” The Warden told him in a quiet voice, his hands still lost under the blankets and holding Connor’s. “Or known you to call him by his first name when it’s not just the two of you alone together. You’re upset by all of this. You’re worried about him.”

“I am incapable of experiencing the anxiety associated with those emotions.”

“Just because you’re incapable doesn’t mean you’re unaware.” The Warden corrected him. “It’s alright to be worried, I sure as hell am and I don’t properly understand half of what’s wrong with him.”

This conversation was unpleasant. Warden Hawke was unpleasant.

“I am Tranquil.” And his priority task had been completed, allowing his focus to shift to the next available errand. Jylan left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love this chapter and I REALLY love Jylan okay it's hard but actually REALLY FUN to write from a Tranquil's POV!


	44. Waking Up

The first time Connor woke up it was a very quiet event. The only reason it was recorded at all was because of Ansera’s presence.

Carver had fallen asleep in his chair, legs kicked out and head lolling. Genevieve had taken his cot beside the bed and was fast asleep. Rowan was in her mother’s room. It was well past the mid-night hour.

Ansera was only awake and present in the room to perform a routine check on the sleeping Warden. He was there to ensure his temperature and breathing remained stable, that he and the bed remained clean and comfortable. With his back turned and hands preoccupied with pouring a small portion of broth into a shallow bowl, the Formari heard a soft change in breathing and mistook it for one of the other two people in the room.

When he turned around, Connor’s eyes were open.

Not wide. Not clear. But open none-the-less and when Jylan approached Connor’s foggy grey gaze tried to follow him. His lips parted and his eyelids fluttered, hardly able to stay open.

“You are safe.” It was an important statement to make, one amongst many others. “You must eat.”

His lips moved, his tongue made a muted sound. Jylan did not recognize the word and later when pressed could not replicate it with any confidence. Connor fell back to sleep with the cup of broth still held to his slack lips.

That he woke up at all, even for only a few seconds, was hailed as a miracle.

“He’s still there…” Evie was the only person Carver would acknowledge as his equal in worry for him. That they’d both been asleep when he finally opened his eyes stung them harshly. “He’s coming back…”

Evie took her obligation to keep Rowan safe very seriously. She let the girl stay alone with her mother just to avoid having to be near Lady Isolde at all, but otherwise it ate up a lot of her time and neither she nor Rowan enjoyed the arrangement. Rowan didn’t know her brother beyond calling him an Enchanter whom her mother had fed her lies about. They’d told her years ago during the war that Connor had died with the Circles, a lie Carver struggled hard not to take to Arl Teagan and beat him with. She fully believed that Connor had come to Redcliffe because he wanted to teach her magic, and that the medicine for his illness was how he’d received payment for the lessons.

Carver refused to have any part in explaining the truth to her. Evie shattered what fragile chance she had at trying to make the girl like her by losing her temper and speaking in Orlesian to herself- not prepared for the fact that Rowan knew the language too. Why did the stupid girl think the army had attacked her home in the first place? Why did she think her father was dead? Why did she think Connor had been dying when they found him and only by a miracle and the Commander’s magic been spared? Were his injuries and beatings a joke to her?

Surana came down unexpectedly hard on Genevieve for that. Carver hadn’t thought it was within the realm of his interests- some mageling girl who had recovered from her possession and was as much against the Wardens as her mother or uncle. He would have guessed maybe Surana was simply playing to King Alistair’s sympathies, but the King wasn’t in the room when the Commander came to find Evie, the crying child sequestered again with her mother, and he was _angry_.

“I relieve you of your care of Lady Rowan.”

“Commander, I-”

“You are a soldier who just shouted obscenities at a child. You are _relieved_ , Captain.”

“Sir, I _promised_ Connor that I would-”

“I do not _care_.” There was a severity to him that was different from the officer, Arl, or healer: the three hats he’d worn the most since the battle. He spoke bluntly and honestly with a great deal of feeling. “That girl has suffered more trauma than anyone else in this village barring her brother and the _already dead._ If you approach Lady Rowan again you will be reprimanded. If that promise meant so much to you then you would have kept it.”

Surana left with that hurtful comment in his wake and shut the door behind him. Carver was up and went to Evie who was visibly shocked by the harsh words and struggled openly to find her own reaction. She gasped and looked at him, but rather than speak she blinked and clear tears dropped down her cheeks.

“Come,” and she walked into his arms. Carver held her firm and close, arms circling her waist and back, resting his head down against hers when she pushed her face down on his shoulder and took the comfort she needed. She was warm and hurting, a cry twisting in her chest as she curled her arms behind his back. “You care, Evie…”

“ _I’m so stupid._ ”

“You made a mistake, he’ll understand.”

“What made me think she would listen to me over her own _mother?_ ” Shh, shh… it didn’t matter now because it was done. Carver kissed her because they’d been lovers for long enough for him to know how she would take it. Their relationship was a friendly thing that had become as affectionate as it was fun, as caring as it was kind. She really should have beaten him a few more times in the head for how awful he’d been on the slow march from Denerim, but if it was Carver’s turn to take a breath and be the one to comfort and sooth, then he was glad for it.

“Come sit with him,” Carver offered in a soft voice, brushing his nose against hers and giving her the time to master her tears. When she nudged her forehead against his and locked the bridges of their noses together, he closed his eyes and leaned into the warm moment. He brushed his hand down her neck to cradle the back of her head, touching her warm skin and the texture of her slowly returning black hair. “No Warden in this country had a chance of making Rowan feel safe, Evie, not after what we did to her home. Come sit with him.”

“He told me to protect her…”

“She’ll be safe, Evie. Come and sit.” She wanted another kiss from him first, something he gave her freely and warmly, and then they both went back to Connor’s bedside.

Carver wasn’t sure who _precisely_ was put in charge of Rowan after that. He left the room so rarely and had little reason to bother the others about Connor’s sister. When he did see her, it surprised him that she was not in the shadow of King Alistair, but in fact sharing the sheltered space behind Surana with… Kieran? Carver didn’t think there was a soul from Amaranthine who would question the fact that Commander Surana’s son was permanently fixed to his parents now that he’d been rescued, but now there were two children following the Archmage about.

And they did go _everywhere_ with him. Kieran was exhausted and reserved, more so than Carver had ever seen before, but while it didn’t seem like the boy got much attention from his father even Carver had to amend that assumption right away. Kieran was not spoken to or looked at much by his father as he spoke to Wardens and the Mayor and the King and the Arl, but the boy hardly went a few minutes without his father’s hand extending out to find him. To take his hand briefly, or stroke through his hair, to touch his face, to feel his shoulder or place a guiding touch on his back. Surana only had the use of his right arm and kept the badly burned left one in a sling under his robe, but he kept his working fingers busy keeping constant tabs on his son.

Rowan he never touched, but her he looked for. Fast, quick. He’d speak to someone, roll his head down briefly to make sure the girl was still in attendance, and go back to his work without breaking stride. Carver kept his distance from the girl and was there for Evie when she had to deal with additional grief from other people who had _nothing_ to do with the issue.

“She’s just a _kid_ , you can’t tell a child something like that!” Like Nathaniel. “It’s way over her head, and moreover how do you think she’d feel if people start blaming her for things? She’s already a mage, let that be punishment enough.”

“Nathaniel,” Carver said, polite enough to wait for the other man to take a breath first. “With all due respect, stuff it.”

“Well I’m right,” he countered in a snotty voice.

“Don’t care. We’re Wardens and not nurses, if Rowan was a horse or a mabari we’d have been all over it.”

“Just you two keep in mind that if you’re gonna keep up this entanglement you’ve got started with him, you’ll want that girl to at least not _hate_ you.” Carver had to admit he went stupidly pink at that comment and he hated Howe a little bit for it.

“I’d hoped we weren’t being that obvious.” He sulked about it a little with Evie quite openly sitting on Connor’s bedside, stroking his hair back and ignoring the conversation now.

“Honestly, Hawke if I hadn’t heard otherwise from you both back in Denerim I’d still be convinced that stupid fight of yours was over Bouclier.” Evie made an utterly _dismissive_ noise. “I don’t care how they do it in Orlais, Bouclier, in Ferelden it’s two people who make a couple.”

“And it takes three to make a trio.” Evie told him in a dry voice.

“Why don’t we wait for number three to wake up before discussing this _privately?_ ” Carver told them both and that put an end to it. Nathaniel was done scolding, Carver was done being bashful, and Connor still hadn’t woken up again.

A week after the battle, a very important question was starting to weigh heavily over the occupied village. They needed Connor to wake up, and he _did_ , but not for long enough for it to matter.

“Connor?” Evie noticed it first, the catch in his breath and the pause between them. She saw his face twitch gently and spoke his name before he dragged his eyes open. He was smothered in blankets up to his chin to keep him warm with or without the embrium, still taking far more of it than Ansera seemed comfortable with. But Connor woke up. He _woke up_. “My sweet, can you hear me?”

“Connor-?” Evidently yes, he could hear them because his eyes found Evie before Carver’s stupid interruption drew his gaze to the other side. He tried to move his head and closed his eyes briefly when it failed, fluttering them back open. He said nothing, but opened his mouth slightly, closing it again and trying to swallow. “Water? Do you want water?”

Maybe he nodded, it was more like he blinked and followed the tiny motion with his head. Carver went to get a cup of it, careful not to mistakenly pour the mixture of herbs instead. Connor couldn’t sit up or free his arms from the blankets, but he took the water in slow, steady sips from Carver’s hand. There was no dragging his arms out from under the blankets, Ansera was firmly against them freeing his hands normally anyways and kept warning them that whatever heat he lost would not be easily reclaimed. Connor chose to be patient and actually _listen_ to the damn warnings because Ansera was Tranquil and wasn’t doing it to be annoying: it was winter for pity’s sake.

“The army came for you, Connor.” Genevieve explained softly to him, stroking his face carefully as Connor finished the water and looked at her again, but his eyes didn’t settle. “You saved us from the Nightmare and the Commander saved you from death. You are very ill, my darling, but Jylan is taking care of you.”

“Your sister is safe.” Carver told him, because he felt like that was an important thing for him to know. It was enough to pull Connor’s gaze back to him, as unfocused and glassy as it was. “Surana is protecting her.”

Connor let out a slow, steady breath. It was hardly anything, really, but he eased it out and Carver felt the blankets move a little, like he was trying to see if his arms or legs could move. Whatever he tried didn’t work very well, but it seemed like when he moved his head just-so to the right, he was more comfortable than he had been before. Evie was stroking his face gently and Carver leaned on his hands through the blankets. Connor fell asleep again looking far better than when he’d woken up.

“Did you make him eat?” Maker’s Mercy, Ansera, he’d hardly been awake for a solid minute. “He must eat.” Ugh, _Tranquil._

Honestly maybe the feeling Carver was looking for was ‘ _Ugh,_ **_Jylan_** _’_ instead, because by that evening they all got a very strange dose of Connor’s very strange assistant.

“Are you… arguing with me?” Commander Surana was not someone to be challenged on practically anything, least of all when and how his troops needed to move about the country and _get out_ of Redcliffe.

“Yes.” The idiot Tranquil said with absolutely no sense of self-preservation. “You are wrong.”

“How so?” The Commander humoured him and Carver was baffled by his patience. They were on the main level of the tavern because Carver did in fact need to eat and bathe, but he quite wished he’d stayed upstairs.

“It is true that Warden Connor’s health has improved,” Connor’s Tranquil stated. “However it is premature to assume his survival if he is removed from Redcliffe Village and exposed to the winter cold.”

“With two attending healers and your own oversight, Compounder Ansera, the journey to South Reach will not be impossible.” Surana told him in a simple voice. “The matter has already-”

“It is not prudent to risk the life of the man you went to war to recover.” Ansera interrupted the _Warden Commander_ and Carver bit his hand to keep from saying anything. They were about to be down one Tranquil chemist. “Your grace is not known as a foolish or imprudent person, but you are making a mistake.”

“I do not look kindly on those who interrupt me, Compounder.”

“That is immaterial to the discussion at hand, your grace. Warden Guerrin must not yet be moved.”

“Perhaps you would like to explain this to the King then?” Surana goaded him and Carver didn’t think Jylan noticed it. “The war is ended and our forces are to leave Redcliffe village and return home promptly. On His Majesty’s orders, Warden Guerrin will be moved to South Reach to complete his recovery.”

“Then I will take your grace’s suggestion and speak with the King.” Maker’s _Mercy_ he was serious! But Surana had not been and did a double-take before realizing that yes, he’d heard that right. “Good evening, Warden Commander.”

“Compounder-?” Oh no he was walking away, Jylan was actually going to go find King Alistair. Carver abandoned his dinner because he had to follow both the Tranquil and the Archmage, the latter of whom was quite undone by the Formari’s stubborn attitude. “Ansera, get back here!” Surana called.

Jylan stopped, turned around, and faced the Commander.

“Do you require my services, your grace?” The little _shit._

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Jylan considered this demand, then answered in the same flat monotone he always used.

“To the Royal Pavillion across the square, where King Alistair is taking his supper.”

“You are _not_ to disturb the King, Ansera.”

“…I do not understand, your grace. His Majesty has made an oversight in his orders regarding a matter which is trivial from his position, but of great importance to Amaranthine. It is important that this oversight be acknowledged and corrected.”

“Important to whom, exactly?” Surana asked and oh, Carver didn’t think he’d like the answer to that one. But then Jylan went and surprised them both with his answer:

“To you,” was what he said. “You did not place yourself in such a compromising position trying to save Connor’s life just to see him freeze to death on the road to South Reach, your grace, but you face an order from your King which is reasonable and cannot be ignored. If Connor is left behind, he may be attacked by the villagers for his role as a catalyst in the war which has upset their lives. If you ignore His Majesty’s orders to leave, then you will be in contempt of his rule and risk losing the peace brokered between Redcliffe, South Reach, and Amaranthine. The only solution is to have His Majesty change his mind and permit Amaranthine’s forces remain in the village until Connor can be safely moved with confidence, not political necessity.”

It was a shocking mouthful to hear Ansera deliver but Carver sure as shit was listening and he could see the open shock slapped across Surana’s face. To be frank Carver hadn’t heard any of that nonsense about Kings and orders and the peace treaty still drying in His Majesty’s pavilion, but he hadn’t gone looking, and didn’t always have a mind to listen in on the chatter around him. People kept secrets from the Tranquil the way they did for a lamp or a fence-post, the damned elf probably knew more about everybody in the army than they did.

Surana rallied himself eventually, but he was slow about it and ended up looking at Jylan with what felt like fresh eyes.

“And how will a Tranquil chemist succeed in swaying His Majesty when I have already failed?” The Warden Commander asked, and Jylan did not hesitate.

“I am Tranquil.” He said, standing there in his hooded blue and white Formari robe, his red patterns stitched to the cuffs of his sleeves and across the hem by his feet. Carver still looked at him sometimes and expected the robe to be green and for his blank, idle face to suddenly pull in a wince or stick his tongue out the way the spirit from the Fade had. Ansera kept his hood up against both the cold and to obscure the sunburst brand on his forehead, and his voice didn’t carry any pitch or tone except flat and even volume. “I do not lie, and there is nothing to be gained by poorly executed deception. I cannot have hidden meanings or intentions. Connor’s death will undo all of the effort spent to save him and I will not allow that to happen without exhausting all possible options first.”

“‘ _will not allow it_ ’?” Surana repeated, playing up his own sense of novelty at the choice of words. “Quite the bold declaration for a Tranquil. What’s brought this on in you? You don’t feel pride in your work or fear or worry for the injured. You’re not doing it out of love or affection, or even for your own sense of happiness. You can’t feel, why is this important to you?”

Jylan got that look again. Carver didn’t know what it was or how he could read it, but it was a _look_ , and the same one he’d given Carver days ago when asked if the embrium upset him. Tranquil couldn’t get upset, but they could wear a _look_ that did something between the eyes and tugged at the top of his dark lips. His green eyes went ever so slightly out of focus and he wore that strange little look for a solid stretch of silence.

“He is my friend,” was the final answer, and one spoken clearly in that flat voice.

“Or as near as a Tranquil like you can-”

“No.” Jylan interrupted the Commander again. “He is my friend. Friendship is a choice.” Surana regarded him calmly for a short moment.

“And this feeling of loyalty that so obviously compels you?”

“I cannot feel the compulsion or violence of emotions. Loyalty is not an emotion. Loyalty is a choice.”

It was Surana’s turn to wear a strange look, but this was also one Carver had seen before. It was a mask that settled over the Commander’s face and obscured whatever he was really feeling, his anger or shame or confusion or delight or whatever it was. Maybe it was some stupid magi thing although he couldn’t think of a time he’d seen Connor do it, but it worked and Carver couldn’t read him. Friendship was a choice. Loyalty was a choice. Carver was reminded even more of the spirit that had helped guide Connor through the Fade and the battle.

“Very well.” Surana finally said. “Compounder Ansera, you may at your own risk approach King Alistair with this petition. I do not approve and I am not _sending_ you to him, so do make that clear or he may have you thrown out on principle. Good luck.”

Carver followed as far as the Royal Guard would let him. Jylan was almost turned away but insisted the guards tell the King who he was, and somehow that worked. The King wanted to speak to the Formari in charge of his cousin’s care and granted the audience even over the whining of Arl Teagan.

His Majesty was staying in the Mayor of Redcliffe’s home, several tents which made up the actual royal pavilion pitched around it while the King slept and ate and kept comfortable inside the actually warm house. It had not stopped pissing cold icy rain for days.

Carver stood out in that pissing cold icy rain for a fucking hour waiting for Ansera to get kicked out or win his fight with the King. He didn’t hear anything. Didn’t see anybody go in or out of the house. He was at one point offered a mug of hot tea for his miserable and soggy ass but declined out of pure freezing-his-ass-off spite. That bastard was gonna get himself arrested and flogged and Carver wasn’t going to have any fucking explanation to give Connor about it.

Carver didn’t know how the fuck he did it but Jylan fucking did it. He was either sweeter than peach wine or about as soft-spoken and docile as sandpaper down a stone wall, but the Formari fucking did it. King Alistair emerged from the Mayor’s house an hour after Jylan was admitted inside, brought the Formari with him in his regal wake, and went straight to the tavern.

“Soren? Soren! Oi, c’mere a minute.” Carver hated this stupid village and it’s stupid freezing rain and its stupid war and- he was _shivering_ and just wanted to go back upstairs to Connor’s bedside. The King called the Warden Commander out of a discussion with Nathaniel about something that was probably very important, and Surana gave _Carver_ a judging look for his dripping hair and sopping clothes.

His Majesty looked at the Commander, pointed at Jylan, and said: “I want to take this one back to Denerim with me.”

Surana just _sighed_.

“Why do you say things like that in _public_ where I can’t answer you properly?”

“Because it bothers you _immensely_ when I do so.” The King crooned back. “But alright, fine, have it your way: I’m giving you another seven days in Redcliffe.” Surana was very quiet for several seconds, then looked briefly at the two children still shadowing him about.

“Cover your ears, both of you.” Rowan was confused and did as told, Kieran grinned in an awful way and did a bad job finding his ears with his hands. “Thank you, Alistair. And about taking Ansera from Amaranthine: _fuck you._ ”

Kieran snorted at the profanity and the King made a very rude gesture, but Amaranthine’s forces were allowed an extra week in the village and Carver was allowed to go back upstairs and sit by the nice warm fire.

It always set off the exact same lecture from Jylan about why not to do it, but once he’d dried off Carver climbed right up on to Connor’s bed and laid down next to him. There was nowhere near enough space, but he could lay on his side with one arm tucked under his head, the other cast across Connor’s sleeping body, and close his eyes for a bit of rest.

“You must eat.”

The fucker woke up again while Carver was napping. He did it on _purpose_.

Carver only woke up because he heard Ansera’s go-to nag, which was immediately followed by the Tranquil’s hand covering his sleeping face and _shoving him away from Connor_. Carver fell right off the bed with a yelp, landed on his back and laid there swearing, one leg still hooked up on the bed which he started kicking petulantly.

“You could have just fucking _asked_ me to move!” he shouted at the _stupid_ Tranquil! Getting up was a chore Carver complained about _at length_ , and he was met with Connor’s glassy, not totally aware of himself gaze. He was having broth poured into his mouth by Ansera and seemed to be swallowing it easily, drinking down almost the entire bowl of fatty ram soup before the Tranquil released him. Connor blinked slowly a few times as Carver found his feet, swaddled in his blankets and a little pink across his face for the belly full of warm soup and the nearby fire.

It was probably a good thing when the blankets started moving. Connor hadn’t been out of bed or moved about much except for the sake of his own hygiene. His attempts made Ansera stop and stare at him with the empty bowl still in hand, but the Tranquil didn’t bark at him to lay still again.

“Do not let him grow cold.” But he still had a few words of censure for _Carver_ when he started helping Connor search for his own arms, and Maker Help Him he was going to fight the elf.

“You’re worse than a damned mabari, you know that, right?”

“I am hardly dog-like, Warden Hawke.”

“You’re an asshole is what you are. He’s an asshole, isn’t he, Connor?”

Connor’s blurry focus was split between them and he gave a slow, delayed blink with one eye and then the other, fluttering them like he was either incredibly drunk or still half-asleep and trying to get something out of his eyes. Maker he was _baking_ under all of these blankets and Carver going to sleep next to him probably hadn’t helped. He half-expected a gasp of steam to come fanning out as the covers were lifted enough to find and free his arm, Connor’s hand pawing across his own chest and throat just to try and self-check himself. When he lifted his hand enough Carver replaced the blankets across his torso, and that was how Connor’s blind searching found his wrist and walked right up his arm and shoulder, pulling on him.

“Connor?” He didn’t answer, just kept pulling. He was looking at Carver but he wasn’t really _seeing…?_ “Hey- hey, just calm down. Over here, I’m right here. Connor _shh…_ give me your other hand, I’m right here.”

Carver took the hand groping for him and struggled with Connor’s trembling fingers, coaxing them to unclench and placing his palm against his cheek. He tried to work Connor’s other arm free and when he did he brought that hand to his face as well. Tears were flooding his grey eyes but he wasn’t seeing any better, his arms losing strength but fingers curling trying to keep their hold on him. Connor ran his thumbs over Carver’s eyes and nose and lips and chin, felt his throat before struggling to climb back up and go through his hair. Carver set himself back on the bed but this time it was so he could lean down and rest his forehead down on Connor’s, staying close and trying to sooth the rushing tears and tight breaths.

“Ansera, I don’t think he can see.”

“It is an effect of the embrium’s concentration in his body.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Partially.” He was mixing something, or had been until Carver spoke to him and interrupted. As soon as Carver shut up he heard the clinking sounds of the Formari choosing and combining reagents pick up again.

“Connor?” He was scared, Maker, he was so scared he was _shaking,_ tearful eyes darting fast and trying to see. “Listen to me, hey… you’re gonna be alright. Just let Jylan do his work and he’ll fix you right up, you know he will. Can you speak? Say something…”

Connor’s hands slipped off him, white and curled and still shaking on his covered chest.

“Connor, can you speak?” Carver asked him again, hands down and trying to rub comfort down into the mage’s shoulders. It took him a bit too long to look back down at Connor’s shaking hands to find the answer.

 _‘No._ ’ His fingers were trembling, but one set moved and did so deliberately. ‘ _No. No. No._ ’

“ _Shh,_ okay, I get it.” He murmured softly and closed his hand around the sign, pressing a kiss down on Connor’s forehead. “Don’t stress yourself like this. Are you in any pain?”

 _‘Not yes,’_ was the broken sign he fumbled through.

“You don’t know?”

 _‘Yes._ ’ Keep it simple then. Yes and no questions only.

“Are you hungry?”

 _‘Not yes’,_ another I-don’t-know response.

“Do you know where you are?”

‘ _No._ ’

“You’re in Redcliffe Village-” Connor’s body went _rigid_. “No- No! Stop that! I said village, not castle!” No good- he was _panicking_. A sound clawed up his throat but it was heavy and strangled and more a heaving breath than actual speech. His legs tried to kick, but he was too weak to twist around and Carver tried to calm him _down_. “Redcliffe _castle_ is rubble and ruin, Connor, it was cracked open like an egg and left in shambles. You are _surrounded_ by Grey Wardens and you are _safe_.”

To calm Connor down again took more time, patience, and soothing words than Carver knew he had. One of the breakthroughs that helped was when Velanna entered the room after sensing the commotion. She quickly began dispelling the spinning runes and powerful dream wards that had burned around Connor’s bed for days. It wasn’t his connection to the Fade she wanted to secure, it was the presence of the Spirits of Kindness and Loyalty that she wanted Connor to feel and use to anchor himself.

“You’re a Spirit Healer now, Warden.” She was speaking to Connor but Carver knew she looked at him too like some of her words were for him. Velanna’s thin, blight-scarred fingers combed back through Connor’s hair, and although he wasn’t _calm_ yet, he was calm _er_. His breaths shuddered when he took them, air hissing over his trembling lips. The tears slowed and the panic subsided. “Listen to your spirits, they will never be far from you unless you do something to break your bonds. If you can’t trust your friends, then trust the Fade.”

Velanna stayed and Carver expected Connor to just drop straight back to sleep. Instead he surprised him by remaining awake. He flinched sharply when Jylan brought a small cup of something bright green and a copper rod to the beside and tried to apply the solution to his eyes without explaining himself first, and Carver was quick to brush his hand warmly across Connor’s face and speak to him, to tell him what was happening.

The emerald-green solution turned a muddy black colour when dripped into his eyes, and Jylan wiped the dirty tears away with a square of soft linen before repeating the process twice more. When the solution teared away as a sour yellow instead of black, he stopped applying it. Connor’s hands explained that it was still difficult to see but now he had a sense of where the fire in the room was, that Jylan’s robe had lighter sleeves than the rest of the body, and that Carver’s hair was dark. Jylan could not read the Warden signs so Carver translated them all slowly and carefully.

He was still shaking quite hard, his signs muddled and sometimes reduced down to broken gestures that failed to carry his meaning. The grammar of the language crumbled, but he was still terribly ill and insisted he could not speak.

“Does your throat hurt?” Jylan asked him.

 _“_ No.” Carver translated.

“Is there a problem in your mouth?”

“He doesn’t think so, no.”

“Is there pain in your lungs?”

“He isn’t sure.”

“How can he be unsure of the presence of pain?” Jylan asked the question right on the heels of the previous answer.

“I dunno know, maybe because he’s been drugged with something that messes up his lungs and numbs pain?” Carver put the question back to the Tranquil and regretted it when he got an extended silence and the elf’s direct attention for several seconds.

“His hands did not move,” Jylan stated.

“No, they didn’t. That was me talking.” But Carver could still tell that- “I’m sorry, it just seemed like a stupid thing to ask.”

“That is irrelevant as I did not ask you.”

“ _Lethallin_ ,” Velanna entered the conversation again. She had been tending to a set of magical wards Carver couldn’t read and now approached Jylan. “Perhaps you should rest.”

“I do not require rest, _Hahren_ Velanna.” Jylan answered her plainly and in his usual flat voice, but he did not take his eyes off Carver where he was sitting on the edge of Connor’s bed still. Nathaniel’s wife sighed gently through her nose and folded her thin arms, swaying slightly on her feet so her staff swung a little across her back.

“If you’re to do your job correctly then yes you do, _Lethallin_.” What was with more and more of the Amaranthine elves calling Jylan that name? “How many hours have you slept today?” Considering it was well past sun-down and today was honestly _over…_ “ _Lethallin_ , please answer me.”

“I have not.” Jylan told her and Carver was _pretty sure_ the word _‘mom’_ should have been in that answer somewhere. He would have made the comment but the Tranquil was _still_ staring at him.

“And what have you eaten today?” Velanna asked.

Jylan ignored the question. Carver thought Connor had fallen asleep again when he felt his hand being nudged and slowly wrapped up in his very warm but trembling fingers. Carver squeezed back and felt Connor pull on him, but resisted. Just a minute.

“ _Lethallin_.” Velanna repeated herself _again_.

“I have not considered it a priority.”

“Well I do.” Velanna told him simply, dropping her arms and gesturing to the door. “Let’s go: you need food and rest before you can continue your duties here.” Jylan finally broke eye-contact with Carver and thank the Maker for it.

“ _Hahren_ I must protest.” Jylan told her in his monotone. Carver felt the hold on him tug hard and finally looked down. Connor’s hands weakly pieced together something that made him break into a shitty grin.

“Warden Hawke,” Velanna said, already shepherding the Tranquil out of the room. “Whatever you said to upset him earlier: don’t do it again. Warden Guerrin, do not wind yourself up and if you feel tired again be sure to rest. If you start feeling any pain, make sure Hawke knows.”

Connor signed yes, and then pawed at Carver’s wrist again.

“Oi, Ansera!” Carver said, taking Connor’s hand again to reassure him. “He just said: _You need to eat._ ”

The Tranquil’s head moved like it was on a pivot, but that neutral face betrayed nothing as he was chased out of the room by Velanna, who did spare a moment to give Carver an ugly scoff. The two elves left with the door still ajar, and Carver still had Connor’s hand clasped in his.

Evie had gone on an evening patrol of the village just for the sake of being useful to the Wardens. She would be back soon without a doubt and Carver _did_ hope Connor would stay awake long enough to see her. But for the time being, the two of them were _actually_ alone together.

The last time they’d had a private moment, they’d both been soaking wet and miserable in a Denerim chantry. Carver’s heart _ached_.

Connor pulled on him, manipulating his fingers poorly but managing to get Carver to stretch his arm enough for Connor to pass his hand from one to the other. His shaking fingers were now free to reach up and curl around his arm, tugging Carver up the bed, tugging him to lay down on it- to lay down beside him again.

“I think your assistant hates me,” Carver said just to fill the silence. Then he twisted, and lowered, and settled himself down on what space there was next to Connor on the bed. Connor hadn’t sat up and didn’t seem willing to try, he didn’t even answer Carver’s comment.

The most Connor was willing to move was to press the back of his head down on his pillow, making space for Carver to slip his arm down around his shoulders. His hand would fall asleep in a few minutes but he didn’t care, pulling one of the pillows around to cushion his head as he settled down. He draped his free arm over Connor’s blanket-shrouded torso, and his reward for all of this was Connor slipping one hand under the one crossing his body, and bending his other arm so his hand came up and rested palm-down against Carver’s cheek and jaw.

“You cannot be comfortable like this.” Carver waited maybe ten seconds before making his comment, and Connor didn’t answer him. “Why are you doing that with your arm? I’m not going anywhere. Roll over- I don’t care which way, but you are _not_ comfortable. My fucking arm knocking your neck out like that, just-? C’mon, _up._ ”

The physical act of rolling onto his side was a _lot_ for Connor to deal with. Carver was glad he’d dressed himself in simple clothes since the battle- a soft tunic and breeches, shirt and socks. Soft clothes he could sleep in, could worm his stupid way under Connor’s unbearably hot covers in. Connor turned away from him and Carver was there to squirm up close to his back, knees tucked behind his, arm coiled around his waist. Connor got to hide under his blankets and stop shivering quite so badly. Carver was stupidly hot but also able to hold him close and proper, actually happy for the privilege of settling his face down behind Connor’s head.

Connor fell asleep again, yes, this was true. But Carver didn’t let go of him all night long either.


	45. A Taste of Normal

Connor became aware of the arraying light of companionship. It interlocked with a hexagon of local energies and bound together its six points in a lattice of safekeeping. The glyph formed, shimmered brightly, and then he found himself in the Fade.

The dream realm took a few moments to form. There was another will nearby that was acting on it and gently correcting the assumptions Connor’s mind made. The windows and stone floor of the rotunda didn’t get a chance to form completely before being set aside. The structure Connor was familiar with was not cast down or abandoned, but literally taken up and moved into the distance, a landmark in a dim blue world that formed and pulled itself together. The central focus of the dream was a fire.

A fire burning in a pit, and moving quite naturally for the Fade. It flung no heat but plenty of light, cracking and sparking with glowing red embers and threads of grey ash clinging to the wood as it burned. It had been going for some time and the ground was black from it, at least a day’s worth of ash strewn about. The ground was either pebbled or down-trodden or bare, the other dreamer wouldn’t make up their mind about it. The dream darkened and dimmed until it felt like night-time, cool and crisp and quiet under stars and the looming stretch of the Black City.

“Good of you to join me, Warden.” Commander Surana was seated on the ground, comfortably robed in Warden armour that didn’t seem as ornate or finely decorated as his usual suit. It was more like the tunic and pauldron Connor wore, much simpler and lacking the splash of colour from the Commander’s missing robes. It was curious to see him dressed down, helmet and sword and shield absent, his staff resting on the ground next to him. His airy blonde hair was bright around his head, scarred ear visible in the light. He seemed at ease with an open look in his wide blue eyes. “I’m very real, Connor. Come and have a seat.”

“ _You_ might be certain,” Connor allowed, hesitant and unsure what to dress himself in as he hovered there like a formless thought, a voice without a source. “But I’m a bit less-”

_My friend!_

Kindness’ warmth collided with him and Connor felt himself stumble. A plain grey tunic and black britches formed, soft leather boots on his feet and the warm sleeves of a black shirt pulling around him. He felt clean-shaven and well, surprisingly so considering his last fragmented… memories…

_He is real. The Consort is no demon._

Loyalty spun and swung itself down his arm, nearly forming Connor’s staff before he felt the spirit correct itself and slip back up his right arm to form a weaving pattern of stitched threads around the cuff and shoulder of the grey tunic, the same place where the pauldron on his armour belonged. Kindness was content to remain nuzzled around his chin and throat and Connor approached the reclining mage, taking a hesitant seat next to him on the imaginary ground.

“You have my apologies for unbarring the way to the Fade for you,” Surana said, sitting with one arm slung around his knee, his other leg kicked out towards the flames. “But your spirits were becoming unbearable. If it had gone on any longer they would have convinced Duty to join them in pestering to see you again.”

“Oh- I… I’m sorry about them, it-” Surana didn’t interrupt him, merely smiled. It seemed warmer than his usual cryptic side-look, like he actually meant it.

“It’s all part of being a Spirit Healer, something I’ve just assumed you’re interested in doing now, yes? You certainly seemed well on your way with it during the battle against the Nightmare.”

“I really didn’t know what I was doing,” Connor hurried to say, embarrassed and suddenly forgetting everything he’d learned about the Fade- how to keep that embarrassment to _himself_. He tried to remember the battle, to remember it clearly, but to his mind it was just a chaotic mash of shouting, fire, and fear. “It was just… I know there were things I needed done but I couldn’t do myself. It was like having two extra pairs of hands.” Surana shrugged at his explanation.

“That’s the basis of spirit healing,” he said. “The Maker only gave us two hands and two eyes so it’s hard to take care of more than what those parts of us can handle. Benevolent spirits can choose to help us when we ask, but only if they want to.”

“Make a friend and then just ask them to do things?” Connor repeated back at him, but he knew he was frowning as they sat by the fire. “It’s supposed to take years to master, I can’t have got it all done in a few weeks.”

“Trust me: you haven’t.” The Commander was quick to shoot that idea down. “Your technique, for example, is non-existent because no one’s ever shown any of it to you. I’ve been preoccupied since your Joining and left most of your combat training to Lavellan after you arrived at the Vigil, but I’ll make it up to you when this is over. Not tonight though.”

Tonight. _Wait_ -

“Hang on, how are we-?” Connor didn’t know how to say it, he gestured between the two of them, to the Black City, to the fire that wasn’t a fire. “Did you summon me? How did we cross paths?”

“It’s not crossing paths if we started at the same place,” the Archmage said and he made the words roll easily off his tongue. “I cast a companion glyph under your bed before I went to sleep: when I entered the Fade, you followed.” Never Connor mind that that was an _Enchanter’s_ spell that had certainly never been taught to either of them- the Commander heard his doubts and it was terrible:

“I know it’s been a while, Connor, but the Circle had these marvelous things called _books_ that many mages used to write their spells down in for other mages to learn from.”

“I- yes, sir.” Connor made himself vanish. Plain and simple, he was not there anymore.

“ _Warden._ ” Surana was not impressed with him, the flat tone of his voice and soft hum in the air said it all.

“I don’t think you understand how often I’ve wished I could really do this.” Connor admitted, source-less and formless again.

“Are you intimidated by me?” Surana asked as if that question _even bore being spoken aloud._

“Of _course_ I am?”

“Connor, come back here.”

“I’m still listening, honest.” He pleaded. “Do go on, you were saying something about technique?”

“Not tonight I said, now sit down.” Surana told him firmly.

“I could be sitting; you just can’t see me.”

Surana took a breath to argue with him again, caught it, held it, and then huffed at him before looking back at the fire.

“Have it your way.” He allowed. “At least we know your sense of humour hasn’t been effected by all of this. Once the rest of you starts doing as well, you’ll finally be able to get Ansera and Hawke to stop fighting with each other.”

Connor re-appeared, and he wasn’t sitting, he was crouching. He needed his face for this because he needed Surana to _see_ how bizarre that comment was.

“ _What?_ ” He asked. The senior mage looked at him straight, then reached around his far-side and- was that a bowl of _fruit?_ No, focus! “Commander, Ansera and Hawke are _what?_ ”

“Fighting.” Surana repeated, setting the roughly carved wooden bowl down and helping himself to a handful of choice blueberries. “Bickering. Getting in each other’s way. Driving one another insane. Driving _me_ insane with their nonsense.”

“But Jylan’s _tranquil_ ,” Connor emphasized. He was split between the ridiculous idea of Jylan getting into a fight with someone, or Carver finding anything _so petty_ and _miniscule_ to get under a Formari’s skin with- and now the fact that the Warden Commander was eating blueberries in the Fade.

“I _know that_.” Surana commented. “That’s why it’s so irritating _._ ” He then regarded one of his berries with disdain because it had begun to mold, so he flicked it into the fire at his feet. “Nathaniel and Velanna find it quite entertaining but I’ve about had it with them. I would like a message from you telling them to both smarten up.”

“Okay, I understand,” He said. This was all a bit too much for him. “This is really very important, sir, but I can’t focus with you- _that’s not real fruit!_ ”

“So?” The Hero of Ferelden asked him and then popped another fake blue pod into his mouth. “Blueberries are out of season until next year, and I quite miss them.”

“But they’re not _real_.” Connor argued.

“They taste real.”

“But they’re _not_.”

“Boo-hoo, Warden, I don’t care.” Surana then snapped his gloved fingers and the bowl of berries suddenly filled with small round orange fruits. Connor stared at them shrewdly as the Commander picked one up and began peeling it, throwing the skin in the fire and pulling apart the sweet segments. Then he started taunting him. “Go ahead: tell me these don’t grow in Ferelden, see if that changes anything.”

He was right, they didn’t grow in Ferelden. Connor hadn’t tasted them since passing through Val Royeaux and although the flavour had been very strong- there was nothing quite like sweet citrus in the heat. Against his better judgement and despite the vivid memory of what had happened to him the last time Connor tried consuming anything in the Fade, he took one of the oranges and broke the skin with his thumb.

“They don’t have to be real for us to enjoy them,” Surana announced in a smug voice, tossing the rest of his peel and rind into the fire before taking up another one. The fruits were small and sat plump and succulent in the palms of their hands, peels opening thin and easy.

“As long as they don’t taste like fish or embrium…” They most certainly did not. They turned into this citrus and honey flavour that washed over his tongue and brightened his mind a little, a sweet taste that made it far too easy to devour a second one after the first. “These make cherries seem tart.”

“Mm, a fine idea.” Rich black cherries plopped into the bowl and Connor really should not have been so ready to try one. This was the Fade, none of this was- “Warden! It’s a simple indulgence. Duty will let us know if anything comes wandering about near us, and I’m happy to wake up and tell your friend Ansera that you had a healthy appetite in the Fade.”

Oh right: Jylan. Jylan and Carver were _fighting?_

“Have a few more cherries and I’ll explain things properly.”

Connor did as he was told, enjoying the rich juice of the black fruits as he chewed through them and spat the pits out into the fire. It was a summer night, comfortable and quiet, and Connor felt the dream tug at him and then at the Archmage next to him, decisions passing silently between them. The ground should be grassy, the hills sweeping off. They were on a familiar stretch of pasture and looping farm-road a day’s ride from the Vigil in Amaranthine.

Surana told him of the battle. Of the politics. Of how Arl Eamon and Talon Valisti and Ser Perth had all died in the battle to take Redcliffe Castle. Of how King Alistair had ridden with Arl Teagan to Redcliffe Village three days later and drawn up the treaties to end the war. Connor’s mother and sister were safe and as well as could be expected, Surana had taken to looking after Rowan personally.

“Thank you, Commander.” The relief that news brought him was a deep comfort.

“Truth be told I’ve never had an apprentice before,” Surana allowed in a quiet voice. “So she may still have to make the journey to Cumberland to find a proper teacher. We’ll see how the dust settles in Denerim first.” Connor didn’t mean to, but he felt his relief quietly sour by the quiet fade-fire.

“Cumberland was what I suggested my parents do in the first place and look where it got me.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice when he spoke, the taste of the cherries fading from his mouth. “Nevara is a fine decision. If I never have to see her again it will still be too soon.” He felt Surana’s quiet surprise brush up against his shoulder.

“That’s not the reaction I expected from you.”

“Consider what I’ve had to go through because of her, sir.” Connor murmured back. “I cannot blame her personally, I refuse to lay that on a child, but it’s hard.” It was hard. It was a heavy, knotted weight burrowing in his chest, crawling up from around his waist like gnarled roots and piercing up through his ribs. He wanted so badly to be angry, but knew he had to master it and direct it to the parties responsible, not the other victim. “The only two things I ever asked of her, she threw away. I think if it had just been the one promise I could move on from it- but to make a deal with a _demon…_ ”

“You once made the same dreadful mistake, Warden.”

“I had no _teacher!_ ” Connor flung the words back, ignoring Surana’s surprise. “I didn’t know what to watch out for, what the temptation would even sound like! I had a blood mage assassin trying to get me to light candles and summon smoke from my fingertips! The bastard probably _wanted_ me to become an abomination.”

“Jowan never meant to-” It was equal parts how fast the name came to the Commander and how he cut himself off that made Connor put aside his nervous ravings and look at the Archmage directly. Surana had his eyes closed, lips pursed, and he turned his face back towards the fire before opening his eyes again. He remained silent.

“You knew him, didn’t you?” Connor was forced to ask, but Surana did not answer. The regret demon, the room full of imprisoning light in the nightmare. Connor had to swallow hard and speak further. “They told stories about it at the Circle, you know. After you left. Everyone from the Templars trying to keep control or the older apprentices just looking to give the younger ones a scare. They always used to talk about how the Hero of Ferelden prized Chantry law and Andraste’s teachings so highly that even when his own best friend turned to blood magic, you had your fellow apprentice handed over to the Templars and tranquiled that same day. But they never talked about the third cohort.”

“The circle liked to twist its stories.” Surana told him in a short, hard voice. He was staring at the fire without blinking. “And the third cohort was an elf named Eadric who died during Uldred’s Rebellion.”

“Then the blood mage wasn’t tranquiled, he escaped.” Connor pushed forward again, curious and encouraged when he felt the Archmage recoil from the question but not push back and shut him up. “You helped him escape.”

“I did _no such thing_ ,” Surana snapped back at him with sudden venom. But it was too defensive for anger. Any moment now he was going to order Connor to shut up but the command didn’t come. “I tried to _help_ my friend, and I received lies in exchange.”

“So you never went to the First Enchanter?”

“I-” the words got lost in a quake of nerves that threatened the fire and the lush hillside. For a moment, Connor thought he could smell the rank stones of Kinloch Hold. “I was trying to _help_ my friend.”

“How do you _help_ a blood mage?”

“By _believing him_ when he told me he was afraid of being denied his Harrowing on account of his weak magic!” Surana told him harshly, voice defensive and his thin shoulders tight with apprehension. Connor had _never_ heard him explain himself to someone before, least of all to Connor himself. “And by trusting him when he told me he’d never touched blood magic; that he’d only raised suspicions like that by sneaking around to meet the Chantry sister who’d caught his eye. We were young and they were fools who wanted to run away from the circle together to keep him from the Tranquil brand. Connor, I went to the First Enchanter to see my friend _Harrowed_.” To give him a chance to die like a mage or succeed and stay safe, to keep his life and live it respectfully. Connor could feel the old hurt and sting of guilt, the justifications that piled up like the cherry pits and fruit peels still resting under the false flames in front of them.

Better to die in the Harrowing Chamber than live his life a ragged apostate criss-crossing the countryside with a wife who’d never lived a day outside the Chantry.

“How did the story get changed?” Connor asked him, because he recognized that if he didn’t ask these questions now, then like Anders before him any mention of Jowan would be forbidden after this night was done. “How did it go from helping to betrayal?” Surana curled his lips bitterly for a few moments, but then surrendered his answer.

“It changed when Irving reminded me who was the student and who was the master,” he softly uttered, going back to staring at the flames. “I went to him a newly Harrowed mage, still dizzy from the lyrium, and I honestly thought my tin words could clash against his steel. I went into his office simply to argue for Jowan’s Harrowing or death, I walked out having confessed everything I knew about his escape plans and the flat refusal from Irving to spare him from either the brand or the sword.” There was… _pain_ in those words.

Connor knew his Commander as someone who could slight the Dalish and then immediately turn around and make nice with the Clan Keeper. He was an Archmage who could walk into Skyhold, yell and beat his staff at the Grand Enchanter, and change the College’s laws around Harrowings. He’d taken the Arling of Amaranthine to war against Redcliffe without the slightest censure from Denerim.

It was… humbling, to hear him describe time when words had not been the same weapon they were to him now.

“Jowan was lost either way.” Surana admitted quietly, he seemed calmer now that he was in the thick of his explanation. “Either I followed the First Enchanter’s orders to incriminate the sister in the escape and help Irving keep balance against Knight Commander Greagoir, or I’d have thrown away the rest of my life and career as a mage for refusing to play the game. I’ve always been very proud, Connor. I was his apprentice, his protégé, and I’d known for years that he would continue to guide me and aim to place me as his successor. I couldn’t throw an ambition like that away or hope to hang on to it if I lost his favour. If I’d known that the next day I would be recruited to the Grey Wardens then maybe I would have done something differently, but I don’t for the life of me know what.”

They sat quietly like that for a time. Connor was thankful that they were in the Fade together because a silence like this would have been unbearable if they were awake with nothing but physical cues to follow. In the dream realm there were many more layers to the archmage’s usually reserved countenance, or at least more of them that Connor could feel without intruding on the other mage or straying into awkward territory with his commander. It wasn’t just silence and stoicism, Surana was grumbling and annoyed with the topic of Jowan, but there was an underlying layer of personal spite that justified the uncomfortable feeling, validated it, told the older man that he was _meant_ to feel this way so he might as well get the worst of it over with now.

Unlike in their talk about Anders the Apostate of Kirkwall, Connor didn’t have to outright ask why he was worthy of this explanation because it was written through Surana as clearly as his pale skin and scarred hands. Soren had been responsible for Jowan’s flight from the Circle, for his damning foray into blood magic, and Connor had been the primary victim of that failure.

“Loghain could have found _anyone_ to poison Arl Eamon,” Connor quietly stated after several minutes of the calm. In a way, Surana had stopped talking but kept communicating. “But the fact that he had a Blood Mage available to him as a teacher for me…”

“Jowan never meant for you to become an Abomination, Connor.” The confidence in those words was not great, but it was strong: a bar of steel hidden under the wet rot of abuse. “I won’t deny that he failed you, but I’m no more willing to accept that he wanted it that way than I am to hear the same of you and Rowan.”

Connor wanted to ask how the Commander knew that so certainly, and in a way he did. It was the wind that blew cold against the fire and the answering rumble of the flames. Surana had not seen Jowan since the Blight: had warned his former friend from ever daring to cross paths with him again. He might have died during the war, he could have expired from a fever or a highwayman or the elements, or perhaps he’d gotten himself married and had nine children on a homestead somewhere. The Hero of Ferelden didn’t know and didn’t care to know. But Jowan had once been his closest friend, and even if he had proven himself capable of blood magic, Surana plainly refused to believe that murder and corruption had somehow woven into the other mage’s fabric.

The next questions was less intentional on Connor’s part, a whimsical thing he didn’t particularly care about and that he would never have spoken aloud. Was _this_ the reason the Commander had taken him into the Grey Wardens? To apologize for the devastation and trauma Jowan had allowed to consume Connor’s fledgling magic? Surana’s answer was a wry smile and a hand extended down into the fruit bowl to pluck a rich red strawberry out to enjoy.

“You don’t remember that night in the mountains very well, do you, Warden?” The Commander asked.

“Which one, sir?”

“The first one.” Surana probed, and the landscape twisted just so in order to cut and rise like mountains. Their hill was still lush, but it was much higher than Amaranthine. They were in a green glade in the mountains between Ferelden and Orlais. “You were down in the burning caravan, and I triggered a spell that caused a landslide across the mountain face to drown the darkspawn.”

“I… remember being very afraid, very tired, and very convinced that I was about to die.” Connor explained.

“You helped my Wardens despite that. You helped _me._ ”

“I’m a walking reminder of Jowan,” Connor stated, legs crossed and hands on his ankles, stretching his back a little from all this time spent sitting on the ground. “I expect you needed more than ‘ _helpful’_ next to my name to go dragging me from Skyhold.” Surana chuckled again, then lifted one hand in front of him. A soft white light gathered in his palm and then grew, tendrils of silky smooth power flowing up and growing from his fingers like the stems of lush plants.

The lines coiled, spread, linked, and chained about until they formed a glyph Connor had studied and cast before: the interlocking circles of a restorative mark, one meant to channel a bit of the mage’s energy into the bodies of friendly allies and help keep them going in battle.

“That’s what I had down on the field below where I was fighting the Emissary,” Surana explained. “Do you remember what you did?”

“I… jammed my staff right about _there…_ ” Connor threw a small, harmless dart of red light into the casting, striking the glyph at the eight-pointed star in the middle. “And because you are much, much stronger than I am, sir, I immediately passed out from the way your mark sucked me dry.”

“Why do you always blame me for these things?” Surana teased. “That is absolutely not what happened.”

“You’re right: I vomited first.”

“ _Connor._ ” Ah, but there was no heat in his voice. Connor leaned back on his hands and admired the glyph hovering over them. Surana brought his hands together and was rubbing his palms in a circle, gathering red light that matched the colour of Connor’s dart. “Book-learning will only carry a mage so far, Warden, but I found myself at a loss to explain what was going on when I looked down at my feet and found my own glyph reflected back at me.”

“What?” That sounded odd to him.

“You,” Surana indicated with a nod, “followed the line of my magic from the glyph back to where I was standing and cast the spell under me.”

“I did not.” It was… _possible,_ but certainly not within the realm of Connor’s abilities. Maybe _now_ after almost a year in the Grey Wardens and with some practice he could try it, but certainly not while he’d been a nothing medic at Skyhold.

“I get enough petty arguments when awake, thank you. I order you not to bicker with me about this.” Connor couldn’t help but frown at the order, but he nodded. Yes, sir. “Excellent. Now for the reason why the other four wouldn’t hear of you being left behind. You refreshed my glyph, copied and cast it under me- _thank you_ , by the way. But then you also went ahead and…”

Surana tossed both hands up with the red light. The restoration glyph remained white, but the red quickly ran about the perimeter and… split off? It grew? Three marks split off from the outer-ring of the primary spell, and they drew a triangular wall around the entire spell all together? But that was-

“I did _not_.” Connor complained.

“Not very well, no.” Surana allowed. “You mis-aligned the radial marks on the upper right corner, and I think you’d put the wrong element table on the bottom one. You also, as you said, vomited and passed out before the outer triangle was complete. But still, for an _apprentice_ …”

“I did not do that!” Connor _shrieked_. “Those four don’t even go together! That barrier mark at the southern point would have blocked the way back to the wagons!”

“Protecting the caravan from-”

“Mages don’t just cast magic we don’t know!”

“Read those glyphs for me, go on.” _Stop smiling at him!_ “Barrier in the south, yes. And the other two?”

“Repulsion-” To keep anything else from spilling down the slope of the mountain- “No! Sir I wasn’t even able to _see_ that much of the battle!”

“Next one, go on.” Surana pressed again and _would not_ smack that twist off his face.

“It- _healing_ , but-”

“You can read them, which means you know them, which means yes you _can_ cast them.” Don’t be so cavalier about it! “I’ll be as smug as I like, Corporal. You’re still right: you didn’t do it properly and you didn’t do it well, you also didn’t stay on your feet or even awake after making the attempt. But you made the _attempt_.”

“I should have died for being so stupid.” Surana threw a cherry at him.

“You almost did.” Oh. Well that… sadly that was not as comforting as Connor had hoped. “The decision was made to recruit you before I even figured out who you were, Connor. It was only after I recognized you and you _clearly_ knew who I was that I gathered my doubts. It’s your own fault for doing everything right from that point on. If I hadn’t given you the joining after the Storm Coast then Morrigan had promised to make me sleep in the Vigil’s stables.”  

“She can’t do that,” Connor stated petulantly, “Not to you at least.” He let the grass rustle with the ridiculous echo of that statement. Surana’s answer was in both his eyebrows rising very high.

“She can. She has. And I carry no doubts that she will again someday.” He wanted to accuse the Commander of joking or exaggerating, but the ashes in the fire quietly told him no, don’t do that. He was serious? “I’ll not pry into your personal business, Warden, but if you’re interested in taking a lover who’s your equal or better in power and status then you’d best learn to watch yourself a little more.”

Connor didn’t see how that would be an issue.

Surana regarded him with a mixture of pity and amusement.

“I think…” The Commander looked to the fire again for a slow moment, then pushed himself smoothly to his feet. Something seemed different now. “-that I am being woken up. Which means I only have one more question for you, Warden, and regrettably it’s a serious one.” Woken up? He could tell? He could _resist?_ “Focus, Connor.”

“Um- yes, sir. What is it?” Connor rose as well, it seemed proper. Surana was holding his staff and leaning on it casually, both hands wrapped around it and holding tight. He did seem a little less present now however, and the fruit bowl was gone, the glyph fading out in the darkness.

“Your uncle and mother have both repeatedly demanded to sit by your bedside, or to visit with you during your waking moments. Do you consent to that?” Connor thought he’d been _slapped_.

“No!” He recoiled in body and mind, taking a proper step back from the _suggestion_. “Keep them away from me- Maker, especially when I’m asleep! Do you have any idea what the _Crows_ did to me? Who _ordered_ it done? No- _no,_ Commander, _please._ ” Surana raised a hand.

“That was all I needed to know, Connor. They won’t come near you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Any other messages I should ca…” His eyes went out of focus, the Commander didn’t have feet anymore and the hillside had vanished. With a snap he came back a little. “Quickly, Warden.”

“Tell Carver and Evie I’m coming back, I’m alright. Tell Jylan thank you and that I’m sorry I don’t know the name of the Antivan herb the Crows were using with the embrium, but it looked like bundles of threads and Master Arainai might-” Surana vanished. He was simply there and then he was not.

Connor remained there for a few moments longer than he knew what to do with, feeling strangely alone with the sudden absence.

The fire was gone. It was dark. The grass was gone, another conjuring of Surana’s. The rotunda was far away, because Connor understood that he was not in Redcliffe Castle anymore. He was alone. It was dark.

 It was quiet. Quiet in a way he should have been used to: there was no ambient noise in the Fade and he’d been here for weeks in his rotunda and the libraries from his memories. But now he really felt it: the _quiet_. It had been intolerably nice to sit and have a _conversation_ with someone who meant him no harm. Just… to sit and eat and talk and yes some of it had been heavy and much of it important, but not all. Talking to another person wasn’t like talking to a spirit, you could be more forward with someone like you. Speak frankly, take random topics and examine them carelessly.

Maker, Connor had never once _joked_ with the Warden Commander before. They’d never had a conversation like that before. He just…

“I want to wake up.” He wanted to wake up and not feel like he was trapped in a living hell. He wanted to wake up and be able to see and to breathe and to know where he was and recognize who he was with. Connor wanted to wake up, get out of bed, dress and shave himself and then go down into his workshop and work at his business helping the Vigil.

He’d been missing for six weeks, laid up in Redcliffe village for a seventh, would doubtless have to stay in South Reach for the eighth, nineth, and tenth. Self-sufficiency in a year would be hard when three months of the year had been spent without an apothecary or his assistant. They would have to aim for next year instead.

Blast it, all of his plants in Vigil’s Keep had probably withered away to nothing in his room without he or Jylan there to tend them. Oh no- oh no the _servants_ were always told to throw away whatever looked like- _his snowdrops!_ No! He’d only just gotten them to- _fuck!_

“I want to wake up!”

If he found one more hammer-mark on his damned table Connor was going to-

He woke up.

* * *

 

Soren grunted at Morrigan to _stop shaking him_ before he even cracked his eyes open, his hands warm and clumsy and looking for hers so he could pry them off his shirt. _Stop._

“You will warn Duty to _mind its tone_ with me in the future, Soren.”

“ _Off._ ” He grunted again.

“Father-” Look what she’d done? Now Kieran was grabbing his arm and rattling him just as hard. “Father, you must get up.”

“I am…” He pushed himself up slowly to sit in the warm bed, eyes still shut, words cracked by a yawn he covered with the back of his wri- _ow… wrong arm…_

“You have overslept,” Morrigan scolded.

“Oh, _bite me_ , love.” She tweaked his ear and he hated that _he hated that._ “ _What?_ ” He grunted again, fighting to get free of them both and pull the blankets off his legs. Curse Redcliffe for being so damn cold.

“Rowan’s uncle is being _awful_ again,” Kieran pleaded, and Soren was patient enough to find his son’s head and brush his hand down from Kieran’s thick black hair and over his cheek. It hurt a little when the boy shook his touch off. “Not _now_ , you have to _get up_.”

“Let me get dressed…” Kieran took him by the hand and Morrigan from his wounded shoulder and they both _pulled_ \- “Stop! Enough!”

“Kieran, your father’s staff.”

“At least let me get my boots on first-”

“You act as if you have time for such comforts!” He had time for boots, damn it!

It was a mess, getting out of bed with the two of them screeching at him. It was not like them to act foolishly, and expecting him to just waltz out of the room with his staff in hand and his nightclothes wrinkled down his body counted as outright stupid. But that was exactly what happened, because aside from his staff and his boots the only other thing Soren was permitted to take was his gold dagger.

“You will need this,” Morrigan said before swinging the door open and silencing his complaints with the threat of this squabble being overheard. The most he could afford for his hair was _her_ hands brushing through it briskly, as if that helped at all!

“What I need are _patience,”_ he hissed back at her, shaking free from her hands. He then allowed his mistress and his son to drag him out into the hallway, directly into the path of Arl Teagan, Arlessa Isolde, and Alistair. This was not how he had wanted to begin his day.

“What in the Maker’s Name is this?” He demanded crudely, embarrassed and too damn proud to let it show. Soren felt like an _idiot_ in his nightclothes, standing in this stupid hallway.

“ _You!_ ” Yes, him, hello. Soren had no patience for Teagan’s grandstanding as the other Arl flung a hand at him, then through the ajar door of Connor’s room. “Your defective slave needs its ears clipped!”

“Oh yes, start the morning with remarks about punishing slaves, Teagan.” Soren spoke over Alistair’s own shocked admonishment. “Improve my already wonderful mood. Get away from that door, both of you.”

“I will see my _child._ ” Isolde gasped at him, woeful pleading eyes staring at him big and tearful and Soren grumbled openly in the back of his throat. He’d been woken up for _this?_ “This _thing_ will not stop me!”

“Oh, but I will.” Soren remarked, approaching the door until he could see Compounder Ansera tucked into the slight space between the edge of the door and its frame. One green eye and the tangled black of his bangs. “Compounder, you may return to your duties. Lock the door.”

The door smacked shut and the lock rattled loudly. Soren tuned out the roaring protest from the three humans like white noise.

“You two, fuck off.” He told the Guerrins simply.

“ _Soren!_ ”

He had no patience for this, not anymore. Teagan took a threatening step towards him and Soren clubbed the older man’s knee sharply with the base end of his staff. It didn’t wound him, but it smarted sharply and dropped the other Arl with a howl.

“You are forbidden from entering Warden Connor’s room.” He stated over Teagan’s yelling. “He is not a Guerrin. He was disowned by the late Eamon Guerrin who did not recant the vow before I killed him, personally, with magic, in front of many, many witnesses. Go away.”

“Soren, you need to just _calm down_.” Alistair came down on him firmly and Soren looked at him with his calmest face. “Don’t give me that masked bullshit.”

“Do you know what I was doing before _this_ bullshit woke me up, Alistair?” Soren asked him, and he dropped any inclination to use titles right now. “I was in the Fade speaking with the mage beyond this door. We had a very nice conversation, and it ended with him saying that the idea of having Arlessa Isolde or Arl Teagan looming over his sleeping body upset and revolted him the same as if they were more of the Crows who tortured him.”

“Why… Why would that even come up?” Alistair asked, but with a bit more humility this time.

“Because this bastard struck my apothecary across the mouth for refusing him access to Connor, and this whore is universally hated in Redcliffe and will keep her wailing mouth _shut_ in my presence.” That flared his temper back up again and Soren did not _care_. “I don’t want to be here any longer than they do, Alistair. We leave tomorrow for South Reach: don’t squander the chance to let Redcliffe Village stay in one piece.”

“Is that a _threat?_ ” Alistair growled at him, thoroughly prepared to throw a punch at him and Soren was a little unclear on how justified that would be.

“It’s certainly not a bluff.” But he goaded the ex-templar ex-warden anyways, because when else was this going to get hashed out? “For the record though, he said nothing about barring the _King_ from his bedside. But these two snakes? Off with them.” He waved the top of his staff at them, flaring the crystal just to get a rise out of Teagan and a shriek from the Arlessa.

“Connor’s a Guerrin whether he likes it or not, Soren,” Alistair warned him, placing a daring hand on his staff and shoving the crystal away. “They have a right to see him.”

“He is _not_ a Guerrin unless he calls himself one, and they forfeited whatever familial rights they had when they traded gold for the scars on his body.” Soren indicated the door with his free hand. “Come, my friend. Let me show you House Guerrin’s handiwork. They burned him, peeled his skin off, slashed his flesh, poisoned his gut, and left him to fester in his own waste for days at a time. Come inside, Alistair, let me enlighten you.”

Alistair stared at him good and hard for several seconds, his jaw flexed a few times and it was clear he struggled not to look back at the two people with him as Soren laid his accusations. Truly, Soren knew his friend had little love for the Arlessa who had seen him turned out of Castle Redcliffe has a child, but Teagan was where the tender feelings lay and that was simply unfortunate. Teagan had been arrested in Denerim and remained in custody when Soren left the capital, how he’d been released to go running about like a loyal dog at the King’s ankles was an annoying gap in Soren’s understanding. However, freedom did not imply power, and Teagan walked about like a man whose only power was to bark at anything which displeased him, not actually bite it. He was no threat, not after what his brother had allowed himself to get involved with.

Alistair nodded, accepting the brutally-worded offer to come inside. The King took a small step towards the door and Soren knocked his staff on the floor to cut a white line behind His Majesty and between the last two Guerrins. He kept his eyes on Isolde and her simpering face and knocked his free hand on the door, calling on Ansera to open it again.

The Tranquil opened the door and Soren beat another spell into the floor. Teagan had no power except whatever shreds Alistair chose to throw him like a starving dog, so there was something very important Soren wanted to impress upon him first. His spell sprouted like thorns of crippling pain through Teagan’s feet, up his knees, around his groin, and held him there in a burning white halo of magic. His sudden yelling was reigned in by the fact that Soren was not _trying_ to maim him, and the man had enough pride not to howl and scream like a beast as he was addressed.

“Arl Teagan, this is your final warning.” Soren told him, well aware of the burning stink of Templar magics hissing around Alistair’s clenched hands. A punch Soren could accept with only minor indignity, but a smiting blow would be considerably harder for him to accept. He focused on Teagan. “Harass, belittle, insult, _assault_ , or in any way harm a denizen of Vigil’s Keep ever again, be they Dwarf, Elf, Tranquil, or Warden, and I will _clip_ away every part of you until the Maker Himself would struggle to put you back together. You are _dismissed._ ”

Alistair entered the room first, and Soren followed with only a quick look back at Morrigan and Kieran. They were satisfied with his intervention and retreated back to the room he’d left behind. Harpies, mother and son, but at least they would be safe if they stayed in the tavern, and comfortable if they remained in the room next to Connor’s on this floor.

“Commander Surana, you are not dressed.” Ugh, _Tranquil…_ Soren wasn’t terribly sure of how he was supposed to answer that comment, but he almost thought he heard Morrigan laughing at him through the wall.

“No, Ansera, I am not.” He made himself- why was the Tranquil looking at Alistair instead of him? “Ansera?”

“Pardon me, your grace: I must ensure my patient’s safety.” Soren was shocked by the _gall_ Ansera had by speaking the words so boldly and facing Alistair square as he did so. Alistair may have been amused by the Tranquil’s forward style a few days ago, but was not in the mood for it this morning and was barely keeping his face from twisting at the insult behind Ansera’s suspicions.

“Maker’s _Breath_ , Jylan, he’s the _King._ ” Warden Hawke was present at the fireside, standing now but with his black hair swept out in all directions where he had been toweling it off by the warmth and was now on his feet to properly acknowledge his king. Alistair didn’t look at Hawke, but he did raise a hand telling him he could reclaim his seat.

“Compounder, I’m his _cousin._ ” Alistair explained as bluntly as he could. Ansera was not persuaded. In fact:

“That is precisely the cause of my attention.” Soren tried to think of a gesture for _‘shut up before someone has you pilloried’_ that a Tranquil would not only understand, but also respond to, and found himself with nothing. Jylan Ansera had proved again and again over the weeks that he could not be intimidated, or simply would not be. It was a very important trait for someone who had been at risk of possession by demons, but frustrating to work with otherwise.

“I’m not going to _hurt_ him.” Alistair argued, voice tight and quiet.

“Then I do not understand your frustration with my presence.” Ansera he could not gesture to, Hawke he _could_ and Soren cut the air with a sharp sign for Hawke to just _leave the Tranquil alone_. Velanna and An’eth had both given up on trying to dissuade the Tranquil from his stubborn path for more than a few hours, Hawke was by far the least qualified Warden to try shepherding Ansera anywhere. Alistair may not have been well versed in how to handle protective servants, but he deflected from the immediate topic by pointing at the bed.

“Is she supposed to be there?” The King asked.

“Yes.” There was no doubt in the Tranquil’s answer. _She_ was Captain Bouclier, who was quiet obviously asleep and curled up along Connor’s side in the blanket-laden bed. For the Captain’s head to be so close to Connor’s, they had to be touching or otherwise embraced, and Soren mastered his curiosity before he could cast a wondering look at Hawke. Hadn’t _he_ been sharing the bed with Connor a few days ago? It was none of his business, and come to think of it: Connor’s message about being alright had been for _both_ Wardens _._ Soren didn’t have to understand it, he just had to stay out of it unless someone stopped doing their jobs properly.

Bouclier was roused, not willingly, and once she realized the company in the room she was none too pleased with having been asleep for their entrance. She sat up in Connor’s bed with visible reluctance, moving to sit amongst the pillows and keep his blankets closed, and Soren had to try and convince the three of them- Hawke, Bouclier, and Ansera, to let the blankets and tunic be pulled aside so Alistair could see his cousin’s scars.

“No.” The Wardens were easy to master and make silent, the Tranquil was not.

“Ansera-”

“No.” Why was it always over the _smallest things._

“He is leaving for South Reach tomorrow morning,” Soren pressed upon him. “If he cannot have his skin barred in a warm room then he won’t be able to leave Redcliffe until spring.”

“It is not a matter of his health, Warden Commander.” Then what in Andraste’s name _was_ it about? “We have Warden Connor’s permission to dress and bathe him, His Majesty does not.”

“He does not _need_ permission, Ansera.” Soren was losing his patience. “He is _the king._ ”

“He does not have consent.” Why, oh _why_ , had Soren allowed Connor to keep a _Tranquil_ at Vigil’s Keep?

“Perhaps he can ask,” Captain Bouclier interrupted Soren’s steady descent into madness by speaking up from the bed where she was still seated. She was looking down at Connor and stroking his scarred face with her fingertips, focused on him in a way which quickly brought Hawke over to the other side of the bed. “Connor?” She murmured a few words in Orlesian to him, and sure enough Connor’s eyes fluttered open briefly, his head turning a little towards her before it looked like he tried to stretch under the heavy blankets.

“He must eat.” Ansera dismissed the previous conversation and immediately went to the table set up opposite the bed and boasting a wide array of tools and reagents for his work. He ladled something thick and grey into a bowl and then went to the fire where a pot of water was steaming, pouring a ladle of that into the bowl to heat up and thin the thick soup.

“Didn’t think you’d come back for a few hours,” Hawke told him gently, as if Soren and Alistair had simply vanished from the room and weren’t important anymore. “Show us your hands. Can you see any better today?” Connor’s eyes struggled to stay open, and the only sound he could make was confined to thick, weak grunts in the deepest part of his throat. The three of them fussed over him like a newborn and Soren was content to stand out of the way and just observe, not step forward to join them as a healer.

“Is it always like this?” Alistair asked him in a quiet voice.

“When he’s awake, yes,” Soren answered just as quietly. “But they keep him calm. I’m surprised to see him awake though, he must not have been in the Fade very long after I left.”

“You were really with him?” His friend asked. “What did he say?”

“Oh, plenty of things.” He explained. “He’s going to carry the scars from this for a while, but in the Fade it’s easier to push trauma like that away and ignore it. When he does that, he seems perfectly normal, maybe even more confident.” Soren had certainly never known Connor to make jokes and act foolishly in his presence, so the younger mage must have been coming into his own as he certainly hadn’t been so glib during the battle. “I told him what’s been happening since the battle, he knows where he is and who has been taking care of him.”

“And he- um…” Alistair interrupted himself when there was a clear upset by the bed.

“You must eat,” Ansera repeated, Connor turning his face away with a grimace that reminded Soren _terribly_ of a fussy child. The difference between Connor and Kieran was the rude gesture the mage made with one hand when the Tranquil insisted with the bowl. “You must eat.”

“I don’t think he’s hungry,” Hawke attempted.

“That is irrelevant, he must eat.”

“ _I gather he says that a lot,”_ Alistair whispered. Soren drew a long breath and nodded without speaking.

 _‘I can’t breathe_.’ That set of signs brought the fussing and chatter to a stand-still. _‘No. Move. Don’t touch._ ’ Quickly and a little broken, but the meaning was clear. Bouclier left the bed and Hawke took two steps back. Ansera seemed frozen by the change, awaiting more information before acting. _‘Not my lungs. My throat. My mouth. They feel forgot sign._ ’

“Huh?” Alistair commented, probably because he’d fallen out of practice with the language.

“He’s forgotten the sign for the word he wants,” Soren explained gently, and got a dirty look for it. “What? I’m helping you, majesty.”

“Spell it then?” Hawke was saying to Connor, who pulled a face and grunted again, but his hand was moving.

‘ _T-h-i-c-k._ ’ Was the first word. ‘ _C-l-o-g-g-e-d. Can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t swallow. No food.’_

“Okay, but are you in _pain?_ ”

‘ _Need a-c-i-d_.’

“We’re not pouring rashvine extract down your throat you get that thought out of your-” Connor shuddered a little too hard for Carver’s joke to follow-through, and the Warden looked shamefaced for it before finally apologizing.

“Let him gargle salt,” Soren finally had to say. “When was the last time anyone bothered looking in his mouth? It could be embrium residue.” The worst part about embrium was the film left in the mouth the next morning. Connor had been under a much higher dosage for weeks without a break. “If we can’t find lemon or another sharp fruit in the village’s stocks, vinegar might help.”

Connor’s hands were moving, but they broke into a sharp, frustrated fit of just shaking hard until Bouclier grabbed one of them and tried to sooth him.

_‘Forgot, forgot, forgot, forgot. Bring paper.’_

“For what?”

_‘Write. Forgot sign. Bring me paper.’_

“You’re just going to write blind?”

_‘Fuck off, Hawke.’_

Paper and ink were brought, and although it was difficult for him Connor did manage to scrawl several words onto the parchment. He was justified in wanting to write because most of the herbs he named didn’t have signs. Lemon balm, ginger, mint, distilled water, fennel, and so on.

“A wash and purge,” Ansera stated after only three ingredients were written, and Connor dropped the quill so he could raise both hands towards the Tranqui’s voice: yes. Something he could gargle and spit, the other that would make him throw up if the wash didn’t work. Ansera set himself to his task and as soon as he was out of the room, Soren finally saw the place to act on Alistair’s original purpose for being in the room.

“Warden,” his voice drew Connor’s attention, the young man clearly exhausted from all the excitement and resting heavily in his bed, arms still out over the covers and foggy grey eyes focusing in Soren’s general direction, not on him specifically. “His Majesty is here to speak with you. It’s important that he see what signs remain from your capture. Will you allow it?”

Connor looked in his direction for several seconds, then his hands moved.

 _‘Is me laying like a corpse not enough?’_ Soren took that question and looked _directly_ at Alistair, who recoiled gently before stepping to the beside and drawing the available chair over to help him sit down. The noise and his presence made him easier for Connor to try and focus.

“Your mother is beside herself with worry about…” Connor’s hands were already speaking, it didn’t quite count as an interruption because the signs were quiet and Alistair _chose_ to stop speaking.

_‘My mother is a liar and a deceptive snake. She feigned concern for me many times before ordering torture.’_

“Connor, she’s your _mother_. I know your father was angry with you, but he…”

_‘They forced the e-m-b-r-i-u-m petals down my throat, with r-a-s-h-v-i-n-e rolled inside of them.’_

“That… I hadn’t known that, I-” Neither had Soren. Neither had Hawke or Bouclier who were staring at his hands.

‘ _Knives. Blood. Ice. Left to freeze. To the tower if I fought. To the tower if I resisted. To the tower if I saw the girl. To the tower if I was in the Fade. T-o-t-u-r-e.’_

 _“_ Connor…”

_‘I-s-o-l-d-e is not my mother. R-o-w-a-n is not my sister. T-e-a-g-a-n is not my father. I am not a G-u-e-r-r-i-n. Go away.’_

“I-  you’re tired, the sign for uncle is-”

 _‘Father.’_ Connor repeated. And then: ‘ _F-a-t-h-e-r. I am no man’s bastard._ _Go away.’_

“Connor, you can’t-”

_‘I can. I will. Go away.’_

“But that-” Connor opened one hand with a simple mark etched in his palm, a web of crackling violet sparking between his tense fingers. His other hand repeated the sign a forth time:

_‘Go away.’_

Soren put a hand on his friend and King’s shoulder. Alistair would be within his rights to do anything but listen. He could have Connor flogged for threatening him with magic, thunder and rage at him for accusing Isolde of infidelity, or done whatever else even occurred to him in the wake of being told four times to leave by a bedridden mage, but that would not have been Alistair. What was him was the way he sat silently in that chair for a handful of painful seconds, let Soren stand there touching him, and then slowly stood up. He ushered Soren out of the room with him with a gentle hand, letting Bouclier and Hawke fall on their wounded companion and try to sooth him again, and the two old friends stepped out into the hall.

The door closed behind them and Alistair didn’t look at him. He stood there in his kingly leathers and white furs, shoulders hunched, back tense, and then slowly reached out behind him to grab Soren’s arm.

It was his good arm and didn’t hurt, wasn’t meant to cause him pain. It was a touch that helped his friend anchor and support himself, just for a few moments. It was the same reaction he’d given after meeting his sister Goldanna for the first time, the way he had when they’d learned the price to be paid to end an Archdemon’s life.

Alistair didn’t look at him until he could look at him, and did so with painful tears welling in his eyes. His face twisted between pain and grief.

“Thank you for killing Eamon,” his friend whispered in a husky voice, shaking his head. “I couldn’t have done it. It needed to happen but Soren I couldn’t have done it.”

“I know. It’s over now, Alistair.”

“ _No._ ” His king hushed, cheeks flushed and lips trembling. “No it’s not. I wanted to _believe them_ , Soren.”

“Of course you did. No one _wanted_ this to be real.”

“Why did he call Teagan his father? You saw it clear as I did, didn’t you?”

“I…” Soren didn’t know what to say. “He’s never mentioned anything like that to me. I’ve always known him to call Eamon his father and I wasn’t there when they had their falling out in Denerim.”

“Neither was I, but- _Maker, no…_ ”

“Come have a word with me in my room this way, don’t walk through the village looking like this.”

“No.” He shook his head, letting tears streak his skin. “Let them see. In fact- I want to announce it. I want _everyone_ to know how their King feels towards House Guerrin now.”

“Is that wise?” Soren asked because he had to. A few weeks ago this reaction would have overjoyed him, but standing here now with the battle a week behind them and the long recovery still stretched out in the distance, it didn’t feel like a victory: just another casualty.

“I don’t give a _fuck_ about wise right now, Soren.” Alistair bit back. “You’ve had your vengeance for your Warden. I haven’t. I got to be part of the damned problem in the first place- well no more!”

“I stand with you, my king.” Because Alistair didn’t need nay-saying and criticism right now. It wouldn’t change anything he did at this point and Soren wanted to be on his side, for Alistair’s own sake if nothing else. “Just let me get properly dressed first.”

“Oh no,” Alistair forced a biting smile, “You’re going to watch me address the whole village dressed just like that, silver boots, mage staff, and woolen smallclothes. I’ll have it made into a tapestry when I get home.”

“You are ever charming and thoughtful, your majesty.”

“Get dressed and come outside, I- I’m _done_ with being political. I’m taking Rowan to the Royal pavilion.” Good.

“I stand with you, my friend.” The most important thing he could have said. Alistair clapped Soren’s hand with both of his. With a painful smile he left the tavern behind with his tears still falling fast and free.

 


	46. Big Steps

 

His Royal Majesty King Alistair Theirin of Ferelden, Lord of the Arls and Master of the Landsmeet, had Lady Isolde Dufort of House Guerrin stripped of her title as Arlessa of Denerim and then publicly flogged in Redcliffe Village square. She was given three days to recover from the livid splits and tears down her back, and then banished back to her homeland of Orlais. She was not permitted to meet with or speak to Teagan before Alistair ordered the damning punishment, but the Arl did manage to put together a party of the few remaining servants and guardsmen loyal enough to go with Isolde and protect her.

Teagan himself only suffered public defamation from the King, a continuation of what the Landsmeet had already given him when his brother’s name had appeared on two official Crow contracts targeting the Arling of Amaranthine and the Grey Wardens. As House Guerrin’s primary home, the Arling of Redcliffe was saddled with full responsibility for the war including the reparation payments to be made to both the Arlings of South Reach and Amaranthine. On top of the damage to Redcliffe Castle and Village, House Guerrin was commanded to pay the wages of every soldier and servant who had marched against them.

The Banns of Redcliffe were to meet on the first day of spring to hear the entire mess laid out to its smallest details, and then they would vote on the final fate of the Arlship of House Guerrin.

Eamon was dead, his wife shamed and whipped, his son had denounced them, and his daughter…

His niece, Rowan Guerrin, did not go with her mother: she was already en-route to South Reach with her brother and the Warden Commander before the whip cut its first crack across Isolde’s spine. Teagan did not know what would become of the poor child now, she had no home in Denerim and no say in which one of their enemies would hold her hostage from this point on. Either she would remain in Surana’s care and journey to Amaranthine, or Alistair would keep her in Denerim to sit at Anora’s knee as a to-be-trained court mage. Or, of course, there was the third option: that the child’s family had been ripped apart and the final word would be to package her off to Nevarra for the mages there to strip her of her name, obliterate the final shades of her noble birth, and turn her into just another quiet servant of the Maker…

Teagan was not certain he would make it to see spring at this point. He was summoned to meet with Alistair again and oh, he felt like a shadow of a man when he stood there.

“You have _one chance_ , Teagan.” Maker, when they’d first put him on the throne of Ferelden he had seemed such a small, uncomfortable thing. All his Warden prowess drained dry by the responsibility of ruling a nation. Now he was sitting in naught but a wooden chair, but it could have just as easily been the same great throne from Castle Denerim. “And _only one_ , to fight for yourself before your Banns meet.”

“I…” It felt wrong to speak, he felt so old, the echo of Isolde’s screams still following him in his waking hours. She’d cut her hands on the chains used to hold her for the whip. “I give praises to the Maker that my King still has mercy to give his lessers.”

“I don’t,” Alistair cut him with the words and Teagan flinched. “But people stop being useful when they’re dead, or in your case: disgraced and standing to lose the right to ever show your face in Denerim _or_ Redcliffe ever again. Prove to me that you’ve still got an ounce worth of value wrapped up under all the complacent _abuse_ and sickening _cowardice,_ because if you can’t then Connor really _will_ lose his father this time, and maybe Rowan too.”

“ _Alistair-_ ” Teagan’s heart _burned_ and he didn’t know how to make the younger man _see_ how much he- “I never loved Isolde and she did _not_ turn away from her husband!” He had explained this before, painfully, _shamefully_ , but maybe this time Alistair would actually choose to _hear_ him. “She was _desperate_ for a child and you _know_ that feeling!”

“ _Bad approach_ , Teagan.” Alistair growled back. “And I don’t care how it happened, it doesn’t mean a damned thing to me because Eamon is dead and his widow isn’t to trespass into Ferelden again until long after I’m good and dead as well. I’m angry that _Connor_ knows, and I demand you tell me _how_ that even happened.”

“I…” had told him. Teagan had made that mistake years ago and never known how to correct for it. “It was during the war between the Mages and the Templars, before the explosion at the Conclave. I’d finally found him in Redcliffe Village and tried to convince him to come back to the castle with me, to come back to his family and accept our protection. He just kept refusing and saying he deserved to stay in the tent city, that he would never dare disgrace his parents a second time by scuttling back to them for protection after the horrible things _he_ had done as a child. We argued and it went on and on until finally- Maker Take Me, Alistair, I just wanted him to come _back._ ”

“ _‘Come back to your family, and by the way: you’re a bastard._ ’ How the _hell_ did you think that would work?” The King bit into him and held tight as Teagan bled.

“If he wouldn’t let me speak on behalf of Eamon and Isolde, then he had to know how much it mattered to _me_ ,” Teagan pleaded, desperate to explain something that didn’t make sense because it was all so painful and knotted up in itself. “Isolde _loved_ Eamon, only the Maker Himself knows who actually fathered Connor because she and I were never lovers, it was simply a desperate attempt to produce an heir for Eamon. He never knew, and Connor never should have either! That’s why I- _I_ …”

“Finish that damned sentence, Teagan, before I have it beaten out of you.”

He didn’t want to admit this part, but between Alistair’s barely contained anger and Teagan’s own throbbing guilt, it needed to be said:

“I didn’t tell them he refused to come back with me. I told Eamon and Isolde that Connor was _dead_.”

“You did _what!?”_ Alistair thundered, on his feet livid with his hands raise to strike out or wrestle Teagan to the ground before at the last moment he regained control. “You _snake_ , Teagan!”

“If I’d told them we’d argued I would have had to explain why and over _what!_ ” Teagan yelled in his defense and it hurt, oh Maker it _hurt_ … “I couldn’t do that to Eamon- I could not! You don’t understand how much he _loved_ that boy…”

“And when he turned the fuck up in Skyhold and you had to explain yourself!?”

“I blamed it on bad information-”

“And when Eamon had that boy he loved so much _disowned at the drop of a hat!?”_ Teagan had to lower himself to his knees, he was being shouted down and if he didn’t answer it submissively he was moments from being run through with a sword.

“Connor refused to cooperate,” he babbled from his knees, hands up to shield him. “He threatened to attack us by exposing Rowan as a mage to Surana- Eamon _never knew!_ ”

“ _He did! He had to have!”_ Alistair roared more loudly still. _“_ Either you told him or _Isolde_ did!”

“You have punished her _enough!_ ” He pleaded.

“But not you!” Alistair was so angry his eyes had turned a pale, radiant blue colour, their after-image hanging in the air when he turned his face away and walked from Teagan over to the table resting to the side of this terrible encounter. “ _Get up_.”

“My king…”

“ _Get on your damned feet!_ ” Alistair shouted and Teagan’s legs wobbled but they moved. He stood, he wanted to run.

“ _You_ are Ferelden’s ambassador to the courts of the world…” The king’s voice was rough with hatred and anger. “You spend more _fucking time_ in the Free Marches than your own Arling. If you want to save your fucking skin, Teagan Guerrin, and go back to that pretty little _childless_ mistress of yours in Starkhaven, then you’re going to give me the only _possible_ excuse that would spare your life at this point…”

“ _Alistair…_ ”

He was handed- no, he was hit with, a thick vellum bundle. It was shoved into his chest and he staggered at the rough treatment, looking down numbly at the seal of Divine Victoria resting next to Alistair’s own crimson ribbon and wax.

“Divine Victoria has called an Exalted Council to clarify the purpose of and perhaps rule on the very existence of the Inquisition. I couldn’t give a fuck which way it goes at this point. Your Queen is warry of its sudden and swelling influence within our realm, and the man who just blew your keep to ashes considers the Inquisition a far more powerful and threatening force than anything the Grey Wardens have mustered in over four ages.”

“You’re sending me as ambassador…” Teagan said in a slow, breathless voice. This was not what he had wanted and he was pleading when he looked at Alistair again, head slowly shaking. “If I leave the Hinterlands after so much chaos, I’ll never keep my Banns from voting me out of my Arling.” He would lose Redcliffe. He, Teagan Guerrin, would be the last link in the family chain. “Alistair-”

“ _You_ will represent Ferelden at this Council,” His King _growled_ down at him, forcing Teagan to shy back, hands wound frail and nervous around the papers he was holding. Alistair had brought these with them on purpose, he had had this plot brewing in the back of his mind before they even left… “And if you don’t walk out of the Winter Palace with a decision which benefits if not _empowers our nation_ then don’t bother coming home _at all_. You _will_ lose Redcliffe, _Ambassador_ , but fail me now and you’ll lose your _fucking life_. Are we clear?”

“I…”

“Are we _clear, Teagan?_ ”

Teagan closed his gaping mouth, swallowed thick and dry down his parched throat, and ruled his spine until it stood straight, shoulders set. He felt as though he’d aged ten years just standing in this room.

“His Majesty is as merciful to his enemies as his Highness is just in his dealings. House Guerrin is _deeply honoured_ to serve as envoy to the Divine and her Exalted Council…”

“Good. Now get the fuck out, _uncle_.”

Teagan left with a broken heart, but a renewed will. The only armed force in Ferelden that had been in the right place at the right time to stop Surana had refused to come to his family’s aid when they’d cried out. House Guerrin had suffered a damning defeat against the Grey Wardens and Amaranthine, but the _Inquisition_ would not face the same fractured force.

Teagan would _end them._

* * *

 

Connor slept almost the entire way to South Reach. When he did wake up, he was uncomfortable, cold, and too ill to speak more than a few words at a time, but he survived the journey.  Velanna had obliged him with a glyph of warding on the carriage floor that blocked his mind from entering the Fade as he slept, sparing him the terrifying plummet through nothingness as he was moved while sleeping, but during the three nights they spent on the road the glyph was pulled apart. It helped him keep track of time and keep a sense of where he was. He was thankful to be away from Redcliffe, but the food was cold, his medicines were cold, and the air was cold. But he survived.

The first time he woke up, he didn’t even draw attention. He was laid across the blanket-strewn floor of the carriage rattling down the Imperial Highway, smothered in thick clothes, cloaks, and blankets that made it impossible for him to move. His eyes barely fluttered, his ears were what told him he was awake:

“Nug.”

“Gullet.”

“Twist.”

“Treetop.”

“Patch.”

He fell asleep again to the sound of Jylan and Rowan playing the word-game together. The next hazy memory he had was Jylan’s monotone voice explaining… what was he explaining?

“-were then gathered into separate cohorts of three or four apprentices each. Warden Connor, myself, and a third human apprentice were one such collection. Our lessons began after prayer, and were followed by lunch, chores, and…” He fell asleep again with memories of the early years at Kinloch Hold filtering through his dreamless mind.

Waking up was easier. Connor realized now that he could do it on command again from the Fade, not every time, but often enough that he came very close to annoying Jylan with it. If he fell into the Fade after taking the embrium during the evening stop, then he could wake back up again at least twice within the first half-hour of the draught. Evie scolded him on Jylan’s behalf, but Connor just smiled warmly and dropped back into the Fade with good news for Kindness. If he kept the prospect of waking up in mind, then he could push his way out through the warm fog and wake up just before dawn. It was so cold it felt like his eyes were frozen shut when he woke up at night, but it was worth it to reach out cautiously under the thick blankets and squeeze Evie’s hand, or Carver’s. The simple fact that he could choose to wake up was enough.

He was still taking too much of the drug, and the journey to South Reach set him back. The cold could have killed him but he was never told if his situation ever took a dive to make that threat a real possibility. What he did know was that waking up on the fourth day, when they were meant to arrive in South Reach, he couldn’t do it. He was in the Fade, meaning he wasn’t in the carriage, and the Fade was only shifting about a little bit, meaning if he was moved it was neither far nor fast. But he could not wake up and neither Surana nor Velanna appeared in the Fade at any point to tell him what was happening.

Connor woke up what felt like a long time later in a room he could not see, but it was not the carriage, and he was not as cold as his last foggy memories told him. He was given warm food and hot medicine and the glyph was cast and he fell back into dreamless dark.

The next time he opened his eyes, he _could_ see, albeit only after a few minutes of blinking and trying to settle his throbbing head. He was in a warm, well-furnished room with stone walls and tall ceilings hammered in place with thick wooden beams. It was hardy Fereldan construction that made him feel safe, the windows covered up with thick tapestries to hold the heat inside even if it meant sacrificing light. There was a large fire and several lamps burning to make up the deficit. His walls were covered in images of farmers and fishers and craftsmen going about their labours, a few scenes from the Chant of Light visible here and there. His bed was swathed with blankets and he felt very warm under them all, wondering if the few strongest points of heat he felt might have been hot bricks slipped under the layers of wool…

He was awake. He was also alone: a novelty. Connor found he was quite comfortable with the idea of being alone, of not being immediately smothered with attention and coddling. He could see one of the glyphs spinning over his bed and watched it with a bit too much focus to be healthy, then remembered himself. Right. _Awake_.

What would get him in trouble with Evie, Carver, or Jylan if they walked in unexpectedly? Standing up would definitely get him scolded. Shoving the blankets off would do the same thing. Connor decided not to get out of bed and do cartwheels around the room. Doing a hundred push-ups on the cold stone floor would probably not be worth the scolding.

He moved his arms. That felt like a safe place to start. Connor was patient with it because he was awake. He flexed his fingers, then his wrists, then tried to shift his hands around and bend his elbows. There was a lot of resistance but most of it was from the weight of the blankets. He managed to work his arms free and stared at his wrist with bleary eyes for a long, long time, eventually remembered that wool was warmer than linen and that was why he was wearing wool now. Right. Made sense. _Wake up_.

He caught himself looking at his magi ring for far too long right after that. Wake up. Get up. Move!

Connor moved hi- _ow._ Oh no, he was definitely going to muscle through this part. His legs _hurt._ He hushed the mild complaints in his feet as he curled his toes, his ankles unbearably stiff until they cracked and it made him _jump_ but oh… at least they felt better after that. He could roll them, a little, the next was-aah! AH, oh- oh Maker his _knees…_ He bit his lip with a grimace, made his right leg _bend_ and that made his hip move too and _ow, ow, ow…_ No, he was going to do this. He threaded one arm back down under the blankets, rubbing his thigh and hip trying to sooth the tense, cramping muscles. He bent his knee as far as he could with his foot flat on the bed, then extended again. He made the other one move the same way and hissed, grimacing at the ceiling, but did the deed.

 _‘I want to sit up…_ ’ He did. He really did want to sit up. He’d done it a few times but not since leaving Redcliffe village. _‘I’ll sit up and then go back to sleep…_ ’ Because he was sore and he was hurting but at least he was _moving_. The sooner he could move the sooner he could get out of this bed all together. Bend one leg again, bend the other again, stretch them both out. He was awake and Connor was moving.

Sitting up was hard, sitting up was hard, hard, _hard- ow ow ow!_ No, _get up_. He was going to sit up if it killed him- _this was killing him, ow-!_

His back popped, his gut _pulled_ , his shoulders were hard-pressed to take any weight when he braced his elbows and then his hands on the bed. But he _sat up_. His head was a lead weight but it was off the damned pillow. He was bent over his knees, or as far as he could with all the bedding in the way, and this should have been very uncomfortable but really it wasn’t. His back was _cold_ , certainly, but not frigid, not frozen. He could breathe. His spine was in a new position and honestly that felt _good_. He could _stretch_ …

And then he felt dizzy.

It was still a victory. He’d moved and he’d sat up: he’d accomplished both of his goals and feeling a little nauseous for the exertion was a simple fine to pay for the privilege. He laid back down on the bed, but he took the great labour of putting one arm down first, and swinging his sore, protesting leg as hard as he could until his hips shifted. Connor not only moved around and sat up, but he managed to roll over. He settled back down on his side, facing the room’s only door, and even though his blankets were a strewn mess he was warm again. He slept deep and easy.

“The Grey Wardens are very well regarded in South Reach.” Jylan explained to him a few days and a few more exercise attempts later. His spirit felt brighter and appetite better when he was given a bowl of thick potato soup with chunks of rendered ram meat and winter radish. His teeth felt soft, but the food was softer and given enough time he was able to chew through it. Sitting up, he was able to hold the bowl and feed himself, a dramatic improvement that he was thankful for. “This room is close to the Warden Commander’s, and is similarly decorated.”

“It’s big,” Connor said. His voice was husky and the breath often left him when he spoke, but he wasn’t mute and Jylan never discouraged him from using it. They were both certain that the more he used his voice the sooner it would come back properly. “Thank you.”

“Will you eat more?” He was asked.

“Not-” Connor had to cough when something felt thick and cloying in his throat, his lungs shuddering with moist discharge. “Not now…”

His days were dull, honestly. When he was awake he wanted to move, but depending on who was with him that became quiet the challenge. Carver fussed the worst of anyone and it was slowly becoming obvious that if Connor woke up and Carver was there, he probably wasn’t going to be allowed to do anything more stressful than eat and talk. If it was Evie, she would at least let him sit up without Connor having to argue for it, but she’d put this tense and uncomfortable face on whenever he tried to stand.

“Please be careful,” she cautioned with his arm either around her shoulders or threaded through hers.

“I could walk in Redcliffe, I will walk now…” He grunted, and he stumbled, but he walked.

If Nathaniel were there then Connor could rejoice: movement!

“Up you get, boy.” Happily, yes. He couldn’t go outside against the cold yet, but he went as far as the whole top floor of Caer Blackwood’s guest wing the first time. The next time Nathaniel appeared he even made it as far as the collection of rooms the other Wardens were staying in. It over-extended him and he had to sit with them for an hour or two to get his strength back, but he was happy for the change anyways.

“But… why are you apologizing?” He got to have a very strange conversation with An’eth and Hassick while he was down there too, shoulders wrapped in a thick wool blanket and Jylan hovering not far to the side to make sure he didn’t faint away. “I don’t understand.” The Dalish warden and the marksman looked guilty and uncomfortable, leaving him at a loss.

“We promised, Athras and I, to be there at the battle to help rescue you.” Hassick explained in a heavy voice, his blond hair braided out from his temples to keep it back. “But we weren’t able to fulfill that vow.” Oh…

“Where were you?”

“Fort Connor,” An’eth told him with regret tugging at the lines of her Dalish tattoos. “We were with Master Arainai and we helped him rescue the Warden Commander’s son from the last Crows hiding in the Hinterlands. We wiped out the entire cell with his and Lady Morrigan’s help, but we weren’t able to hurry back for the battle like we promised.”

“Wait…” Okay, maybe Connor shouldn’t go walking this far so soon. Something was either affecting his hearing, or these two’s grasp of things. “So you’re apologizing to me… for rescuing a young boy from the same people who did all of this to me? Do I have that right?” he asked, rubbing his eyes with one hand for a few moments. “Because if so then… no. No, that’s not how this is supposed to go. The way it’s meant to be,” and he looked at them again, aware that his voice was going and his focus was going, and Maker this chair was comfy and warm… “Is that I tell the two of how humbled and honoured I am to wear the same armour as those who rescue children from murderers and restore them to their families unharmed. Thank you, Warden Athras. Thank you, Warden Hassick.”

They both pulled faces at him like smiling hurt, but they nodded and oddly enough he couldn’t hear what they said. But he had plenty to thank them for because he hadn’t yet reminded them that they’d found his amulet and ring, the two most important… Where did they go?

Oh, this was the Fade now. Damn it.

Nathaniel got him to move around the castle, Evie and Carver kept him confined to his room and to bed. The rarest person for Connor to wake up and see was Commander Surana, but when he did come it was a mixed blessing.

“Focus, if you can.” With his body screaming at him Connor found magic _so hard_ to make work. It was easy in the Fade, it was breathless and simple and a part of him. Here with his body still weak and a thousand different pains to ruin his concentration, magic was _astonishingly difficult…_ “Breathe and try again, Warden. I’m not testing you on knowledge or power, this is simply an exercise in control.” And it was _hard_.

It took him an hour just to cast light in perfect shapes again: circle, square, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, pentagram, and a dozen others. It was almost as hard to visualize what he wanted through the film of embrium than it was to physically cast the magic out from his shaking hands.

“Much better.” Don’t encourage him, this was _miserable_ work and the glyph he finally wound up with couldn’t even channel its energies properly. “You’re no Apprentice, Warden. You’ll get through this soon enough.”

“I just… have to want it enough, sir?” He asked stiffly, hands shaking and it felt like his face and back were drenched in sweat.

“There is nothing wrong with your magic,” Surana told him simply. “Strong bodies make for stronger spells, you’re getting there.”

“I want to go home…” Connor admitted stupidly to himself. Of course, standing over his bed the way he was, the Commander heard him and answered.

“When you’re strong enough to ride a horse, we’ll be on our way within the hour.” That meant everyone was _waiting_ for him. Brilliant.

He was getting better but it was _so slow_ , it felt like _ages_ since leaving Redcliffe Village and Connor just wanted to go home. He wanted to see the Vigil again. His room, his workshop, the courtyard, the mess hall, the library, all of it. He wanted to go _home_ and stop seeing liveried servants wearing South Reach orange everywhere.

“You are gaining back your appetite and weight.” Jylan was his primary caretaker and Connor was quite pleased with that arrangement most of the time. It still left at least a few questions needing answers however, and sometimes he just watched his friend work quietly and tried to figure out how or if he even should speak his mind. He knew Jylan wouldn’t take offense, but Tranquil were conditioned not to resist when something was asked of them regardless of what it was. He was not a mage accidentally or traumatically given the brand during the war: Jylan had lived as a Formari in the Ferelden Circle for nearly three years before the outbreak of the war, and been that way for another four since then.

Seven years was a long time.

“How did-” His throat closed up when he spoke, prompting him to cough again and look up sheepishly when Jylan returned to the bedside only to stand there and look down at him blankly. It was about as close as his friend could come to asking him if he was alright. Eventually, the coughs subsided and Connor could work enough air through his lungs to speak. It was always hardest to speak in the morning. “How did you come to be with the army? And the not at the Vigil?”

“King Alistair ordered my appearance in Denerim Court.” Jylan explained in his flat voice, eyes and face unchanged as he watched Connor. “My skills were to be employed in the case of your sister falling ill. However, that was not the case.”

“No, but… it’s a long ways from Denerim to Redcliffe.”

“I remained a member of Commander Surana’s entourage.”

“Wars are dangerous, Jylan. And you don’t travel easily- why did he bring you?”

“He carried a strong suspicion that you had been poisoned, a suspicion which proved correct.” He was certainly right about that, but Connor still wasn’t seeing things clearly.

“So he just… dragged you across the country in mid-winter? I’m so sorry…”

“That is incorrect. I was not dragged, Connor.”

“I don’t mean literally, I mean- boxed in without a way to safely take yourself home. Ordered to do something you didn’t want to.” Connor closed his eyes briefly and gave a cough, his hand waving with a nonsense gesture. “Not that you want things, I know, but the language is clumsy.”

“I understand your meaning. I was not dragged.”

“I’m still sorry you were put through this, Jylan.”

“That is incorrect. I was not put through anything.”

“Were you ordered to come south?” Connor asked, his throat starting to go raw, but he pushed through it.

“No. I was given the choice between remaining with Commander Surana’s entourage or returning to Vigil’s Keep. However, my return would have involved another apothecary of unknown skill attending to the Warden Commander, and made it impossible for me to oversee your recovery as I have thus far. It was preferable that I remain with the army despite my difficulties with travel and the uncomfortable weather.”

“I…” The others were right: Jylan _was_ speaking more than usual these days. He was speaking more and what he was saying was all important and all things that needed to be given voice. Connor felt warmth curl under his tongue, brush behind his eyes, and make it difficult to breathe- but this was a good struggle. He lifted one hand up over the covers and gestured for his friend to come closer. Jylan approached and even took Connor’s hand in both of his, either mimicking or remembering the gesture of comfort, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “ _Thank you…_ Thank you, Jylan, just- _thank you._ ”

“You are welcome, Connor.”

He was crying but it felt good. These were good tears. They felt like the ointment Jylan spread in his eyes to clear them from the embrium, like the clean water used to wash his face and shave away that _awful_ beard he had so hated wearing. He wept and he felt relief, holding his friend’s hands tightly with his own, thanking him, and keeping him close. Jylan didn’t have to feel the same things he just had to recognize that Connor still needed him and stay. Just _stay_.

Tranquil didn’t get bored, they didn’t feel anxiety, couldn’t get antsy when something unpleasant was taking too long to end. Jylan sat and he stayed and he was patient. He let Connor cry and didn’t interrupt him, didn’t make any attempts to sooth or stop something that was honestly _alright_ just happening the way it was.

Only when he felt himself calming down again did either of them speak, but first Connor had to decide if this was really something he wanted to say or not. Was this really something he wanted to ask or not. The question was not an easy one and did not come with a clear answer.

“You should drink something.” Jylan took the silence as permission to speak, which wasn’t wrong of him but Connor shook his head no and kept his hold on his friend so Jylan couldn’t leave.

“I have another question,” he said, voice thick and cheeks still damp from crying. “But Jylan: you don’t have to answer this one.” His friend watched him for a quiet beat, then nodded.

“If I know the answer then I will-”

“ _No._ ” Connor interrupted, something he knew Jylan didn’t like but that didn’t matter this time. He squeezed his hand tightly for a moment. “No, that’s not how it works. You do know the answer but Jylan you _do not_ have to tell me. I’m not entitled to it, but I have to at least ask.”

He wasn’t certain his friend understood, but honestly that had more to do with Connor being unclear than with Jylan being Tranquil. His friend looked at him for a long moment, then seemed to settle his face in a way that made him seem more open. It showed he was listening for whatever this odd question was going to be. Foolish Connor, he got lost on the way and started on something else instead.

“Jylan there was- a spirit…” He blundered, but now he was committed and he took this path. “At the battle, when the Veil tore open and the army was swallowed up by it. I was approached by a spirit who helped us, one that offered its friendship to me, but… But Jylan, it took your face.” Jylan didn’t respond to the comment. He’d been told Connor wanted to ask him a question and he was waiting to hear it. “Jylan, did you ever commune with a Spirit of Loyalty when we were apprentices at the Circle?” Because Loyalty had never pried into Connor’s mind to find his friend’s face or voice or long-lost mannerisms. Loyalty had never probed or asked or dug around in Connor’s memories for so many little quirks and possibilities. The only way Loyalty could have known Jylan so well was if Jylan _himself_ had…

“Yes.” Connor felt his heart break. Jylan gave his answer and nothing more, his expression open enough to say he was listening again without anything further to add.

“How?” He asked, “How did you even…? We had summoning lessons, yes, but- but connecting to gentle spirits was something reserved for Mages and Enchanters, not apprentices like us. How did you even start?” Jylan took the question and he held it for several moments, his green eyes drifting without focus until he had his answer and looked at Connor again clearly.

“There was a book in the library, one mis-placed by a ranked mage and left where apprentices could find it.” He explained. “Amara brought it to my attention and we agreed to hide it in one of the piles of workbooks near the younger apprentice tables. Due in equal part to your past experiences with demons and the Fade, along with your notorious fashion for abiding by all rules without hesitation, we did not include you in our studies.” Connor took this information in very slowly, not sure which part to focus on.

“I was not _notorious_ ,” he argued weakly.

“I have clear and varied memories of arguing the point with you.” Connor had those too!

“I have clear and varied memories of arguing with you not to climb the bookcases not because it was against the _rules_ , but because they were massive things that would have crushed you to death.”

“…I concede now that your point was valid.”

“ _Thank you_.” Connor said, but without tears this time. “I’m… honestly surprised to hear you were studying. You never studied _anything_.” Not unless Connor or Amara had physically wrangled him down in a seat and read the books aloud to him. Jylan had been an absolute _pest_ trying to-

“I could not read.” Connor- stopped. His thoughts screeched and slammed into one another, end-to-end in a twisted heap. His memories withered and turned rank with sudden meaning. “To study was embarrassing and a source of great frustration. The subject of spirits was suitably enticing to see me confess the deficit to Amara, who held it in confidence.”

“Wha-? But why didn’t you say anything _before that?_ ” Connor gasped, staring wide-eyed and shocked at him. “How could you not _read?_ ”

“I was from the Alienage.” Jylan answered him so simply Connor actually struggled to remember that he was Tranquil and not angry with him. He continued on in his monotone voice, either because it was something had gone unsaid for too long, or because he knew Connor was taking too long to understand and needed it spelled out more clearly. “Amara was a clerk’s daughter who was taught letters at her father’s ledger. You were from the nobility and had been instructed by many tutors. My family did not have such opportunities. I could not read until Enchanter Petra taught me.” His mentor…

“Maker, I just…” Years and years this had gone unsaid. Connor just wanted to fall back to sleep and pace the Fade, try to figure all of this out. Maybe he would speak to Loyalty, there had to be something the spirit could tell him that would help with all of this. “I didn’t know… I thought you- that you just hated the Circle and its lessons. That you didn’t take magic seriously not that the books- Maker how did that never come up? How did I ignore something like that?” Jylan offered him no answer, and Connor just covered his face with a hand to try and keep himself calm. “And that book… I just thought you and Amara were… off together hiding in empty classrooms.” It wouldn’t have surprised him, honestly. Apprentices had made and broken intimate bonds with one another more often than most of them changed socks. Something about the thrill of having to hide, the fear of people just up and vanishing for Harrowings or for infractions the Templars never had to explain. If you wanted to avoid it then you could, and Connor had.

“We were.” Jylan’s voice drew him back to the conversation. Oh. “That was how we discovered the book.”

“And the book was how you met Loyalty,” Connor filled in.

“Yes.” And then, quickly: “I am unclear as to which of these questions was your primary query. You expressed great caution before speaking, however this conversation has not warranted such levels of care.” Jylan was still sitting next to him, still holding his hand, but somehow still very, very far away.

“…I don’t know if I can ask it anymore.” He answered hesitantly.

“I do not understand.”

“I… I’m trying to figure something out, Jylan, and I can’t.” Learning higher level magicks in the library was an offense but not one that warranted being made Tranquil. Jylan’s poor reading was something his mentor had known about, so she would have been able to argue that he hadn’t even known what the book was about. There had been no demons, only a benevolent spirit. He could have been beaten or locked up or starved or something else but not Tranquiled. It didn’t make sense for Jylan to be made Tranquil for speaking to spirits while Amara had escaped without any censure, despite being the one who would have read most of the pages _to_ him. It didn’t make sense. It had to be something else.

Connor didn’t want to know anymore. He didn’t want to force Jylan to explain how and _why_ he had been made Tranquil when he was genuine enough to earn Loyalty’s attention and friendship as an apprentice, and skilled with so many other small forms of magic beyond that. Manipulating elements, controlling lights, memorizing details. He should have been given his Harrowing. Why had Jylan been made _Tranquil?_

“Was it _blood magic?_ ” Connor wondered aloud, his voice falling to a whisper. Jylan was watching him but didn’t react to the hushed words. “Did you ever use blood magic, Jylan?”

“No.”

“Were you ever accused of it?”

“No. Yes.” Jylan’s focus left him, gaze drifting just a little higher than Connor’s eyes, his thinking face. “I was not accused of using sacrificial blood for magical casting. But I was accused of forbidden arts and the term blood magic was frequently used as an over-arching definition.”

“What were you accused of, exactly?” Connor asked breathlessly.

“Summoning demons.” _Oh, Maker…_ Connor shook his head slowly, too tired to weep again as he squeezed Jylan’s hand. “It was untrue.”

“It was a book about spirits.” He hushed. “It wouldn’t have had information about demons in it except how to stay away from them or to tell the difference. They would have punished you, yes, but not with…” No, no, _no_ … Jylan fell into silence for several seconds, but he was looking at Connor and focused on him.

“Are you attempting to understand why I was made Tranquil, Connor?”

“Yes.” This was hard, it was so much harder than he’d thought it would be. He wanted to go back to sleep. “I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense- were you just afraid of your Harrowing?”

“Everyone was afraid of the Harrowing. That was not the reason.”

“Then what was?” Connor asked. “Why did they do this to you?” He wanted to say please, to beg for an answer from him, but Connor had already said that if Jylan did not _want_ to give the reason then he did not _have_ to say it. He would not go back on that pledge now.

Jylan was quiet. He was quiet for an uncomfortably long time. He would stare straight through Connor’s eyes and then lose focus, then come back and look at him again, and then go off again in his own mind. Connor just wanted him to make up his mind over whether or not he would speak but didn’t want to interrupt if he was about to come up with a response. Please. _Please._

“The official reason,” Jylan finally said in his toneless, blanketing voice. “-as was signed by the First Enchanter and Knight Commander of Kinloch Hold, was that I had trespassed beyond my knowledge as an apprentice and had willfully attempted to summon a demon into the Circle. The charge was supported by my frivolous use of magic throughout my time in the Circle and my well-known disregard for the authority of higher-ranked Mages and Enchanters within the Circle’s hierarchy. The proof of the accusations was in the form of testimony provided by another Apprentice, who claimed to have witnessed the malevolent summoning.”

Connor went cold. Not from embrium or his own condition, but by the word _proof_. He felt his eyes widen with horror, knew he was clutching tightly at Jylan’s dark fingers. He searched, _pleading_ , for anything that would tell him his friend’s words didn’t carry the meaning Connor heard _behind_ their simple sound. Proof. Witness. Only one other person had known about the book.

“Why would Amara do that?” He gasped again, his breaths tight and difficult to find. “It was a shared secret, you were together, she- _why?_ ”

Jylan stood up from the bed, not quickly, but he was deliberate and pulled Connor’s hand up into both of his again as he found his feet. He turned and regarded Connor for a moment that was quiet for the Tranquil but _loud_ for the Mage. He could hardly breathe, mind spinning.

He remembered Amara, her talented magic, her short-tempered manner, her endless drive to study more and understand more and do more and be thought of ever-more highly by their instructors. Amara’s twisted red hair and her heart-shaped face and her dark eyes and her freckled nose and her sharp voice and her scolding and her sharp elbows when one of them fell asleep in lessons.

“Why would she accuse you of summoning demons when you _weren’t?_ ” Connor pleaded. “Why would she do that to you? Why? _Jylan, why?_ ” What had happened between them? What had Jylan done to enrage her to the point where she’d made up a horrible lie that had landed him in a fate worse than _death?_ How had she lived with herself after it? How had Connor never known? Why had he never _asked?_

He remembered Amara crying for _weeks_ after Jylan had vanished from the bunk above Connor’s and returned a shade, a blank-eyed, flat-voiced shadow of no one either of them really recognized as their friend and cohort. He’d been there in the hall one evening, and the next morning gone. Connor hadn’t even seen the Templars take his belongings and clothes away. He’d assumed it was a failed Harrowing until they saw him in the tower store-room several days later… The Circle had never announced these things, it was always rumours chasing rumours and whispers hidden behind more whispers. The rumours said Enchanter Petra never took another Apprentice after Jylan, the whispers suggested it was her fault. Connor had never asked. Never pried. Never seen it as his business beyond one or two attempts to ask Jylan if he was alright, if he’d done something wrong, if it had been frightening or had it hurt to have Jylan’s connection to his magic and his dreams severed both at the same time.

“Jylan, answer me, _please…”_

Why, Maker why, had he never asked until _now?_

“It is apparent that this topic is stressful to you, Connor.” No- “Therefore, as you implored me several minutes ago, I exercise the right to withhold the answer to your question.”

“But you didn’t _do anything wrong! She-!_ ” He shouted and- and _pain_ \- _lungs_ -! The air went out with his scream but he couldn’t get it back. He tried to gasp and it felt like his ribs cracked and seized sharply in place, spearing his chest with pain that forced him to grunt and lay flat on the bed instead of struggle to sit up and reach out. He hadn’t shouted before and his throat closed up tight and thick, his face flushed and tears stinging his eyes. No, _stop it,_ not like this- not _now!_ He didn’t want to be sick _now_ he wanted-!

“I will inform the Wardens that you are unwell and my presence unlikely to improve the situation,” he was just talking at him over Connor’s own struggles, untangling his hands, moving away without taking his gaze off the bed.

What had she done? What had that stupid girl done to their friend? Come back and _tell him!_

“They will attend you momentarily, Connor. Please try to calm yourself. It was many years ago and Amara did not survive as we did.” _That **bitch!**_

He couldn’t breathe but Connor _did_ feel something he had not known in a long time. He opened his eyes at the ceiling and from a place next to the spearing pain in his chest there came a sharp, needling, _scratching_ anger that nipped at his insides and clawed its way through his blood. The taint beat and burned its way from his heart through his gut, devouring the embrium and leaving a cold wake behind as it roared through his chest and forced a deep breath to cut through his teeth, relieving some of the immediate strain. Taint gnawed on his bones and howled in the back of his head, limbered up his arms and planted a quick and dirty plan that his frayed temper and broken heart both leapt for.

He clapped a hand to his chest, felt over the wool covering his skin, the hard lump of something he wanted _gone_ where it was resting high and large next to the disk of his oath pendant. He couldn’t grab it for the fabric and felt up, walked his shaking, tense fingers up to his throat, his neck. He scratched himself trying to hook his fingers around the cord, around the _right one_ and not the chain holding the warden amulet. He found the woven cord, he bent his neck so hard it almost popped, and ripped the damn thing up over his head.

He threw Amara’s wooden chantry locket as hard as he could at the floor and he _prayed_ it snapped in half! He couldn’t see where it landed and couldn’t rise again after flinging it down. What Connor did see, what he did know, was that Jylan was at the door and came back into the room with a fast and long stride. He knelt down to pick up the last existing piece of the woman who’d _betrayed_ and _destroyed_ him, and then left the room far more quickly than his usual gait would allow. Jylan should have _burned_ the damned thing after finding it!

“ _I trusted her… I trusted her… I trusted her-!”_

 _“_ Warden.” It was Mistress Howe who lorded over his bedside and tried to restrain him and _no!_ “You will master the taint, Guerrin, because there’s no point giving you embrium to help you breathe until you-”

“ _Drink that poison **yourself**!_ ” He wanted to shout, to _roar_ , to let his voice out past the whirlwind raging in his mind and get it through the thick phlegm of his _throat_. Instead all that came out with his hands up and arms bent close to his chest, Velanna’s thin hands clasping his wrists and trying to force him to lay still again, was this stupid awful garbled _hiss._ He wanted his _voice back! “Get off-!”_

“ _Connor_ ,”

“ _Leave!_ ” he shouted again, the taint there to fill his lungs and rip them open again painfully so the air could come back. That he hissed the rest didn’t matter to him; “It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? _Go away!_ ” His gall shocked her hands off of him, the insult biting deep and hard enough to send her two steps back from the bed. The taint let him twist and roll until he struggled to fold himself over, sitting on the bed with his head and shoulders low over his knees. It was easier to breathe this way. Easier to shout.

“ _Leave me alone!_ ” She tried to touch his back again, tried to give him embrium. He slapped the cup from her hand and chased her off with more hurtful words. The door clattered shut and he formed a glyph of locking and barring in his mind, held it there strong and white and brilliant- but it faltered miserably and fell like limp threads from his hands.

No.

_No._

He wanted his magic back.

He wanted his magic back.

He wanted his magic _back_.

_He wanted his magic back._

His entire life had been torn apart again and again and _again_ by magic, Connor was going to get his _back_ if he had to burn his own soul to an ugly red smear with the taint grinding his bones to a bristly pulp. He wanted his magic back, and with taint howling in his blood: he took it _back_.

Lock the door. Bar the frame. Repulsion on the floor. Paralysis along both walls. Lightning cast across the ceiling just to terrify whoever was enough of a damned fool to break through the rest. Connor was used to building walls of traps and barriers to keep the unwanted away. Magic that muffled noise, sealed off the voices, made the outside stay _out there._ He knew where the windows were and he barred those just as soundly. No black shadow creeping over the sill and inviting itself in to scold and lecture him like a _child_. Leave him _alone._

He healed himself, he hated every hurt and missing piece and gummed up broken ruined _something_ he found in his body. He hated his flesh for its scars and his gut for its failings and his limbs for their weakness and he _hated this._ He hated _being like this_. He would not stay this way and he would not let himself take _months_ and _months_ and _months_ to wean himself bit-by-bit off the poisons that had _done this to him!_

Connor wanted to send a burst of magic under the table and shatter every jar, pot, and beaker resting there- but held off. Knowing the embrium was there made him angry. Anger kept the taint going. And there was food on the table as well, untouched by embrium. Water and soup and herbs that would keep him alive. He didn’t destroy the table, he just _hated it_. He hated South Reach. He hated this damned _castle_ for being Redcliffe’s sister.

He hated _his_ sister too, just for good measure.

The last magic Connor worked was to bar his mind from slipping through the veil and into the Fade. He was ready for when the taint finally wore itself out and his flesh realized the embrium it so cherished had run thin hours ago. He wasn’t going to drink the damn poison anymore. He wasn’t going to die for his stubborn decision either.

He just had to be left the hell _alone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats yes you got me this entire story was actually just an attempt to figure out why Teagan is so bitter and whiny in Trespasser.


	47. Another Poison

 

The most racist thing another person had ever said to Soren had been when Leliana honestly and directly asked him if elves purred when happy. He preferred to think of himself first and foremost as a Grey Warden, followed closely by his prowess and skill as a mage, but the sheer audacity of the former Bard’s question had still managed to offend him. His answer at the time had been a very rude _‘How should I know? I’ve never felt that way.’_ His answer today, common-sense aside, was still a no. If Soren could have purred, he would have done so while standing outside Connor’s bedroom door.

“Tis a warning if there ever was one.” Morrigan, however, made charming work of the sound from her place standing next to him. Her presence in the castle had a wonderful effect of unnerveing the staff and the Arl of South Reach. A visiting noble’s mistress still demanded certain respects and considerations, but a mistress who was a powerful chasind witch and had the power to transform into a castle-destroying dragon on a whim was, understandably, a bit more nerve-wracking for Caer Blackwood.

“I agree,” Soren answered her, and then continued admiring the scrawling white lines dancing across the surface of the wood. Their host did love and admire the Grey Wardens, but so much magic in his castle was quickly running Godrick Bryland very grey.

In front of Soren now was not a difficult spell, but an unnecessary courtesy from the mage who’d cast it: a warning. The magic woven across the door clearly announced an assortment of other and more dangerous magics resting on the other side. Most of them were stock spells Soren knew Connor was familiar with and he himself had used countless times. Repulsion to knock enemies off their feet, paralyses to wrack limbs with seizing cramps, blatant denial in the form of barriers forged from solid will and only to be overcome by beating back Connor’s demand that people stay _away_. It was quite the array and Soren was deeply pleased by the variety of spells awaiting whoever was stupid enough to shove their way into the young Warden’s room.

“He’ll come out soon,” Soren reasoned pleasantly, and was not surprised when that comment begged for argument.

“Commander, it has been two days.” Captain Bouclier looked sleepless and fatigued from Connor’s abrupt change in mood and his violent withdrawal from the rest of the castle. Whatever had set him off two days ago had certainly struck quite a fire in him. “He cannot look after himself yet, not in his state.”

“I promised only to examine the new marks, Captain.” Soren told her as gently as he felt he had to. “Having now done so, my answer is the same as it was in the hour he first put everyone out of his room: it’s best to leave him be.”

“But we don’t know what’s happening!” Carver blustered next to her and Soren raised a calming hand to him.

“The warning spell is a new one, Warden Hawke.” He explained as kindly as was necessary. “He is quite alive and alright. His staff is in the room with him, no?” Soren already knew the answer but it felt good to remind the two worried wardens about it with a question. “Just leave him alone. He’ll either come out when he runs out of something he needs or feels like finally showing his face again.”

“But _sir_ ,” Hawke pleaded, and Soren wished he wouldn’t do that. Hawke was better than begging.

“He’s a grown man, Warden.” Soren scolded. “A few days ago he could hardly focus his magic to form a basic spell, today he has over half a dozen different magical weaves suspended and maintained around his room. I’m not going to let him die, Hawke, I need him.”

“Need him for what?” The sorrowful man asked him, and Soren could admit that maybe now had not been the right time to use that word.

“Magi things,” was his blunt but sufficient answer. “Both of you go take a walk somewhere- and get Ansera to go with you. I need to go update our host Arl Bryland on this situation with my misbehaving mage. Good day, Wardens.” And with his arm offered for Morrigan to smugly take, that was the end of _that_.

“It certainly seems a handful,” Arl Bryland himself was saying an hour or two later. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, Arl Surana, mages are well known for their secretive and moody dispositions. It amazes me that to travel and keep with so many of them does not drive your attendants mad.”

“Do you consider me also secretive and moody, your grace?” Soren asked smoothly, and the human Arl answered him only with a well-humoured laugh and a very silent _‘Yes I do_ ’.

The two of them were standing on the cold stone balcony looking down from the Arl’s study into the lively castle courtyard. Caer Blackwood was only half the size of Vigil’s Keep but she had just as much activity packed into her walls, and a break in the winter rain was quickly taken advantage of by every manner of craftsman, clerk, apprentice, soldier, and child in the fortress. _Including_ the two children who had finally stepped out from under Soren’s feet for a few hours.

Not that Soren had allowed Kieran and Rowan to go off _alone_ , Maker Forbid. From his vantage on the balcony he could see clearly down into the bit of space Nathaniel had kicked aside for a gaggle of scruffy boys and girls. Kieran was there in the thick of it trying valiantly to successfully disarm the Warden when he invited each rug-rat and scabby-kneed child to have a go at trying to wrestle the blunt dagger from his grasp. Zevran was not far away and visible only because he chose to be, chirping at the children with lines of Antivan poetry to make them giggle, and making small objects disappear with simple slight of hand.

Rowan took a running start at Nathaniel, who flipped the girl neatly over his shoulder and let her hit the dirt in a heap right next to Kieran.

“She hardly seems the cause of so much trouble.” Godrick commented heavily from beside him. “Naught but a normal young girl.”

“At her age,” Soren let his words out slowly, “her magic is little more than a liability. She doesn’t have much to harness and use as what most people consider spell-power. Her mind and spirit are only just awakening and growing into the abilities. By being aware of the Fade the demons become aware of her, so without a teacher she can fall victim to their touch.”

“As was the case at Castle Redcliffe.” His voice was grave. “It speaks well to your power and mercy that you were able to save a Guerrin Mage a second time.”

“Thank you for your praises, Arl Bryland, but the deed was not mine,” Soren smoothly corrected. “My thoughts were only to protect the army and the soldiers I led into a demon’s trap. Saving Rowan was her brother’s calling, not mine. There would have been far more casualties had Warden Guerrin not interceded.” If he hadn’t mastered the Fade so convincingly. If he hadn’t distracted the Nightmare so completely and let Hawke’s sword find the back of its head.

“You will take her to Amaranthine for training?”

“Until her brother and I can arrange a better solution, yes, that seems to be the case.”

“And what of your son?”

Soren looked at him.

“What of my son?”

No. Don’t smile at him like that.

“He’s a fine lad, I can see as much from here.” Don’t. Do not. Not right now, thank you. “Amaranthine and South Reach escaped censure for this war by a hair’s breath. While I regret not playing a bigger part in the triumph, I feel no need for us to look about for another enemy to march on. This is a friendship better forged from mutual closeness, wouldn’t you agree?” Son of a bitch.

“Your grace, we have forged several close agreements between our respective Arlings this winter.” Soren made his words as smooth and promising as he could, even throwing a smile into the mix. “But my son is expected to return to Vigil’s Keep with his mother. She will not have it any other way.”

“Mothers always resist allowing their little boys to become young men,” Bryland played with the words like this was something Soren would laugh and nod his head to and play the put-upon husband for. No.

“Arl Bryland, consider if you will the full length and breadth of my accomplishments.” Soren invited him, and made sure he was definitely not smiling or laughing as he did so. “If you would also include my general disposition and personality, then it might be worth re-evaluating your opinion of Lady Morrigan. She is a woman who not only puts up with me, but does so willingly. I may rule Amaranthine and command the Ferelden Grey Wardens, your grace, but make no mistake: when she says jump I ask how high.”

“I suffer to imagine you doing any such thing.” Bryland scoffed at him, and the flattery was endearing.

“Then imagine how much I suffer when it happens.” He didn’t have a comeback to answer that without things becoming petulant, so Soren salvaged what remained of the original topic. He made sure to sigh as he did so and looked back down into the courtyard. For some reason Kieran was scrapping with- oh, oh that was Rowan. Excellent. Soren’s son was fighting in the dirt with Connor’s sister. Perfect. His child and his ward were fighting. The Maker was laughing.

His sigh felt more genuine when he finally came around to speak again.

“I will suggest South Reach as a fostering keep for my son, Arl Bryland, but I make no promises.”

“Thank you, Arl Surana.”

Soren suggested it at dinner that evening. Morrigan laughed and told him to choke on his wine. Rowan said little, ate less with her bruised mouth, and Kieran had an ugly black eye to go with his own sour appetite. After the meal his mistress spirited the dower girl away to speak to her of magic and other, secretive things. Soren had been flatly told not to intrude on those evening talks because they had to deal with how Rowan’s world had been shattered in the span of a few weeks. Instead, he had to manage his son.

“I shan’t.”

“You shall.”

“But father-”

“I watched you roll in horse-shit from Arl Bryland’s balcony.” Kieran puffed out his cheeks in offense. “You are going to _bathe_.” If Soren had to play the Templar then he would play the Templar, his son was going to endure hot water and soap even if it killed one or both of them. “We had regular baths at the Circle, you get this from your mother: get in that tub.”

“You don’t need to stand there and watch me, you know.” This was why nobles sent their children away before they became teenagers: to avoid _this_ phase. It nettled him in an unbearable way when Kieran crossed his arms the same way Soren had already set his own.

“If I must spare the laundry their work and throw you in fully clothed, Kieran, I will.” He hadn’t had to do so since his son was four but Maker Help Him, he’d do it again in Caer Blackwood’s guest wing. “One.”

“You wouldn’t-”

“ _Two._ ”

Kieran was successfully bathed and put to bed, the same one Soren retired to after casting off his robe and rings and belts and insignias. Morrigan was late to join them after handling Rowan in her secretive but effective ways, but her son was still awake and waiting for her. Their son was quiet and calm as Soren left the bed and took up a simple wooden comb to help take Morrigan’s soft black hair down from its twists and braids, her hands occupied with removing bangles, rings and gloves from her person, and with wiping off some of the khols and rouges that painted her face. They retired back to bed and found Kieran barely awake under the warm quilts and furs staving off the winter cold, and settled down.

Soren remembered the comment about mothers and their little boys, but flatly dismissed it as he took his family warm and safely into his arms. Sleep did not come easily.

“…Something has upset you, my love.” Morrigan’s voice was quiet in the dark, calm and low with her head resting at his shoulder. Kieran didn’t fit as easily between them as he once had, and Soren brushed his hand down the back of their son’s sleeping head a few more times in the quiet. “Soren?” Her fingertips brushed his chin, blind in the dim light. She sighed at him. “Why must you always wait until I am comfortable to stew in your melancholy?”

He caught her sleepy fingers and brought them quietly to his lips, giving them a kiss of apology before letting his arm behind her wind across her back a little tighter. They shifted, but Kieran kept his head down and his breaths deep.

“Our son is growing up.” Soren answered quietly. “I don’t like it.” She strangled a laugh from the shadow next to him.

“If you do not want him squired to some noble thug then you need not do so.” Morrigan told him simply, the hand he’d kissed now spread across her son’s back. “ _I_ certainly will not force your hand. Tis a practice with _some_ merit, yes, but it assumes the child’s parents to be unfit, biased instructors of life’s harder lessons.”

“Just because I don’t have to do it doesn’t mean he isn’t of that age,” Soren grumbled back quietly. Then, just to annoy her, he stretched a little and pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. “If you aren’t going to be miserable about it with me then go to sleep.”

“I refuse to be so dismissed,” was the sharp but whispered answer. “In fact, I shall endeavor to increase your suffering. Do you not recall the first time you tried feeding him pickled fruits?” Oh no… “How he spat them directly into your lap and the look of sheer offense you gave him was as nothing I had seen before. It even crossed my mind that my son was about to burst into flames.”

“He was one and hardly knew me at the time,” Soren grumbled back against the gentle memory. “I do not blame the child, I blame the witch who provided the fruits.”

“I was as mystified as you,” she lied. “Much as I felt when he took another of his damned fevers that had him squalling for _hour after hour_ in the woods with no way to calm him. But _you_ …”

“Crying is nothing,” he muffled his words in her hair this time, eyes closed and breathing her in. “The worst he could do was cry, and that was easy to ignore. You have no patience for small children.”

“And you, I am still convinced, are deaf in at least one ear for that nerve-splitting _noise_ not to bother you.” Morrigan grumbled back. “I was nearly ready to abandon him in a hollow tree.”

“You would have come back eventually.” Soren assured her, one arm around her shoulders with her laying close against him, Kieran wedged in the small space left for him with one hand from each parent touching him warmly. Morrigan didn’t bring up another memory between them, she just held her son and hid her face against Soren’s shoulder and throat.

“…I do not like it either,” she finally admitted. Her voice was tinged with something thick and unpleasant, meaning when he looked down for her she was already searching him out the same way. The kiss was brief, but it was helpful to both of them. “I don’t know how to raise a young man any more than I did a small babe…”

“As long as we both promise not to set him on fire or leave him in a fox’s den,” Soren murmured back to her, and her felt her give a mean little smile in the dark. “I think we might do alright.”

“You must also promise not to foster him with Bryland.” Morrigan stopped his next kiss with a finger to his lips and a condition in her mouth. “South Reach is much too far from anything and too close to the Wilds.”

“As my lady comma-”

“Or West Hills, or Edgehall. Arlings yes, but again they are much too far away. Redcliffe is right out.”

“ _Morrigan_.”

“If it must be with a Bann do ensure they are not the snivelling, boot-licking type or else I shall be forced to-” He kissed her by force, and then quieted her list of requirements with:

“I’m certain Teyrn Cousland will be happy to take Kieran for a few years.” Close but not too close to Amaranthine, higher than an Arl without being all but an enemy of Soren’s. If anyone ever accused Fergus Cousland of snivelling or boot-licking then Soren would be obligated to crack their head with his staff on principle. Morrigan had to be satisfied with that. Not happy, merely satisfied.

“This was meant to make _you_ miserable, not me…”

“I love you too, my heart.”

* * *

 

Connor did open the door again, he had to. After three days he’d run out of firewood and sustained the room with his own simmering temper. Keeping the fire going on top of the other spells was mentally taxing, and the crippling weakness invading his body made it an unbearable labour to get anything done. Not that he had much to do beside feed himself from the meager collection of foods Jylan had kept in the room for him, but still, he tried.

The vast majority of his time was spent in a place between waking and sleeping. He wasn’t in the Fade, but he was close enough to hear Kindness and Loyalty while still keeping his spells active. He was aware of time moving, of himself labouring to breathe, of how cold and weak his body was, but his anger and his stubborn resolve remained with him. The taint remained with him. He was not _trapped_ in that between-states, he put and he kept himself there.

Addiction was not something most people thought about on a daily basis, but the Circle had always quietly known about it. It was hard not to know what addiction looked like when your guards and jailers and watchers were all harnessed to Lyrium. No one chose to become addicted to something, no Templar ever woke up one morning and told herself: _‘You know what I fancy? A dose of that glowing blue stuff, it sounds like just the thing to wake me up!_ ’ Connor hadn’t known enough drunks to get a feel for what constant drinking was like, but he had known about Lyrium, and Connor was willing to shove embrium into the same category.

Addiction wasn’t a person thinking, _‘I want this because I’m stupid_ ’, it was _‘I want it because my body is telling me I am going to **die** without it and I do not want to die_ ’. Maybe some people just were stupid, maybe others honestly couldn’t wrap their minds around the fact that the thing they thought was saving them was actually what was killing them. But for anyone else trapped in the cycle, it was painful and it was obvious. Connor wanted the embrium in the room, but it was killing him.

Just because he wanted it didn’t mean he was going to take it however. He wasn’t locked up with the Crows anymore where sleep had been his only means of escape. All Connor had to do was focus on what he wanted _more than_ the embrium, all the things that giving in to the craving and the fear would make _impossible_ for him to take back.

He wanted to return to the Wardens. He could not do that saddled to embrium’s horse for the rest of his life. It was luck alone that had kept his water and rations as close to him as they always had been to keep him alive until now, trying to add embrium to his usual kit and then take a dose every few hours was impossible to consider. He wanted to return to the Wardens and that meant being physically strong and able enough to sleep rugged on the road or in forests or cold mountains or stupid deserts. He had to be able to ride a horse when tired to the bone and fight when he hadn’t had a decent meal in days. An able body was not a preference among the Wardens, it was a flat-out necessity and without regaining his health Connor would never regain his rank. He wanted to return to the Grey Wardens more than he wanted the embrium on the table, so he did not touch it.

He wanted to go home. He could not go home until he could ride a horse and comfortably survive the journey north. The reason for this was not tied to survival as much as it was the Commander’s decision. Connor had felt Surana’s will at its strongest during the battle against the Nightmare, there would be absolutely no arguing him down and no sense in even trying. He would not return to the Vigil, to his role as Apothecary, to his duties and routines and good works unless he could physically and competently make the trip. Connor wanted to go home more than he wanted the embrium on the table, so he did not touch it.

Connor wanted Carver to take back his confidence and cheer more than he wanted the embrium on the table, so he did not touch it.

Connor wanted Evie’s good humour and teasing smiles back more than he wanted the embrium on the table, so he did not touch it.

Connor wanted Jylan’s confidence in his health and strength restored to the point where Jylan could tell him _why_ he had been made Tranquil, why their _best friend_ had betrayed him so horribly. He wanted that answer more than he wanted the embrium on the table, so he did not touch it.

His self-respect, his magic, his pride, his abilities, his honour, his self-control, his purpose, his job, his hobbies, his horse, his armour, his friends, his peers, his bed, his room, his cleaver, his spellbook, his workshop, his orders, his obligations, _himself_. Connor wanted _himself_ back more than he wanted the poisonous powders and leaves sitting that _damned_ table, so he _would not_ touch it.

He was a mage. If he could defy a Nightmare with it standing on his chest, then Connor could resist the embrium that was suffocating him just the same. If he could resist demons that had literally reached _into his mind_ to concoct horrible scenarios and what-if moments of terror, then he could resist an inanimate plant. He could, and he would, because he was a Grey Warden and a Harrowed Mage and Connor _would not give in_.

He hid in the half-sleep of meditation, his staff resting with its casting foci in his hands and the Serpentstone glowing a pale yellow inside its silverite and obsidian cage. The stone gave him a central point to focus on, his thoughts fuelled his anger, his anger kept the taint alive, and the taint carried the double duty of attacking the embrium in his body while also keeping that body _alive_.

He could have laid on the bed but something about refusing the drug for this long had caused him to break out into a thick, clammy sweat which made the sheets and blankets and even the softness of the mattress intolerable to him. He stayed in a high-backed chair by the fire with the taint rumbling sharp and dragging in his blood to keep him warm enough to function. At times he found his mouth filled with the taste of blood from his chattering teeth finding his tongue or cheek by accident, but he wore through it. He gave himself no alternative.

He could eat from the table, drink what distilled water was available, and generally keep himself and his spells alive like this. At least that was the case until he ran out of food, water, and firewood. At that point and after repeatedly rehearsing what he wanted to say, Connor finally unbarred the door.

He didn’t break all of the glyphs at once: that would have been alarming for whoever was watching if all of his magic suddenly collapsed on itself without warning. He took away the most dangerous spell first, slowly and deliberately unravelling the mark of lightning and letting its icon fade from the door’s warning spell. Then he dismantled the rune for ice, and the marks of paralysis, and the shockwave of repulsion. He kept the barrier in place while pulling apart the silencing spell that had blocked any knocking or yelling from the hallway from getting to him. The barrier still remained up, but it was only a few minutes before he heard a voice call out to him.

“ _Connor?_ ” It was Evie, someone he would not at all mind seeing right now. She gave an oath in Orlesian and then called to him with: “ _Are you ready to come out now? Open this door, Chere, I’m done being worried about you and I’m going to kick your ass this time._ ” There was another oath and the firm clap of foot-falls, meaning she was either suddenly ungainly or was stomping her feet on purpose so he could hear her. Either way, her declaration made him give a shakey and uneven smile.

He pulled out the threads of the barrier spell until it collapsed into motes of harmless green light, and then finally cast down the warning spell itself. Evie knocked at the door, then tried the handle, then opened the room up so she could see inside.

“ _You-!_ ” His Orlesian was good for many things but Connor didn’t know exactly what she said to him. There were many body-parts, animals, and vulgarities thrown in but the actual poetry of the insults fell flat on him. Rather than focus on what she said, Connor was aware of what she _did_.

Namely, she stormed into the room with her arms flapping up and down, mouth full of loud and angry words. She gestured at the squandered table of reagents, the unmade bed, his unshaved face, the discarded bed-pan and chamber pot, the blocked windows, the door, back to Connor’s appearance, back to the door, to the fire- and then she realized the wood was gone because she shouted _‘Where is the damned firewood!?’_ at him. She actually paused her tirade just to bark at him to stop using magic, so he did, and the entire room plunged into darkness save what was coming through the open door.

Evie _howled_ at him because there was no oil in the lamps, stomped her feet, marched to his chair, and then somehow found the gentle means to take his face between her hands, scold him one more time, and then kiss him. It was not deep because Maker Only knew what he looked or smelled like, but it was firm and good and _real_. She kissed him and he could take a hand off the staff in his lap to touch her face, looking up at her for affection until he felt her pull away. Her lips felt so good on his, and she was calmer when it was done.

“We will straighten this room out for you.” She told him simply, in Trade. “But first, you. What do you need?”

“No more embrium,” Connor wheezed and then realized he was not breathing as well now as he had been a few minutes ago. His anger had evaporated and the taint was fading. “ _No more, Evie._ I won’t have it…”

“It’s what’s keeping you alive, Connor, I can’t-”

“I’m a _Warden_.” He reminded her, swallowing air trying to find the means to open his lungs again. He gestured to himself. “Three days, no embrium. _No more._ ”

“You _miserable_ mage…” She grumbled at him, but then consented by kissing his clammy forehead. “I make no promises, _chere_ , but if Jylan or the Commander say otherwise then you are taking it again.”

“No. I won’t.” He argued, leaning his head against her arm because it was close and she was warm. “I’ll handle them.”

“Handle Ansera _maybe_ , but you’re not going to fight Surana.” She stroked her fingers through his hair and if only he could breathe then he would have been able to enjoy it. It was cold without the fire.

“With one hand behind my back, I will.” was his boast, clammy skin and all. “Watch me.”

“Watch you _die_ if you speak like that to him.” She cautioned.

“You can’t poison a dead man.” Connor smiled at her, it felt crooked and tired, but it was a smile. She shook her head at him but kissed his forehead again and straightened up.

“A _bath_ , please.” She said, returning to her first point about what he needed. “Water and something hot and proper to eat. Will you at least drink tea?”

“ _No embrium_.” He reminded her.

“ _Yes, yes, just…_ do not lock the door this time!” And then Evie made sure things happened.

Connor was helped to walk to a different room so his old one could be aired, cleaned, and prepared for him to return to. He was taken to bathe and while he could handle most of it himself, he had to deal with Carver yelling at him from outside the wet chamber with its hot stones and clouds of steam.

“You maggot-brained, lyrium-addled, silver-spoon-stuck-up-your-ass ingrate _son of a bitch!_ ”

“You got the last part right…” It was easier to breathe with the steam around him. Maybe it was just washing away the old sweat and shaving his face that did it, but breathing in the hot humid air felt _much_ easier on his lungs. “If it’s so bad you could just make Hassick follow me instead, you know.”

“Fuck you! _Fuck you! Fuck you, you fucking fuck-headed fucker!_ ”

“Carver,” he said, not quite strong enough to lift and dump the water over his head, so forcing himself to make do with handfuls of the rinse instead. “I know we’re soldiers, but this is a bit much.”

“ _You scared the shit-loving fuck out us and now you think you can just crack jokes!?_ ” He was either being a little too sensitive about this or Connor was not being sensitive _enough_. It was hard to tell.

“Are you waiting for me to apologize?” He asked, a little dizzy but stubbornly keeping at it. He was cold but he wanted to be _clean._

“ _Yes!_ ” Carver howled. _“_ I actually _am!_ An apology for that shit would be _fucking nice!”_

“Can it wait until I’m _not_ taking my first bath in a week?” Connor asked him, and heard a furious noise and what was probably Carver kicking something very hard because it was followed by a painful whine. “I can try healing that for you if it helps?”

“Apology first, _stupid magic shit later!_ ” Was the shrill answer. “You’re taking a really long fucking time in there too!”

“It’s a bit harder than I expected…” Connor ended up pouring most of the water out of the bucket, and with some careful lifting: success. He rinsed most of the soap off himself before trying again. He felt _very_ dizzy now.

“Do you need _help_?” Carver asked the question like it was admitting defeat over something. Connor almost asked him if helping would just lead to Carver going to even smaller pieces than before, but wisely held that comment back in his mouth. “Connor, I swear on Andraste’s Ashes if you’ve passed out in there I’m going to kick you in the head.”

“I don’t like being sick any more than you people like taking care of me,” Connor said something that might have been _worse_ than the other comment, but then he felt a flutter in his chest that- ah. “Carver, can you say something stupid again?”

“What the _fuck_ kind of request is that?” Carver shot back from the other side of the ajar door. “I asked if you need help getting out of the fucking bath without slipping and cracking your skull open.”

“Either you have to come in here and drag my naked sickly self out of this bath because I can’t stand, or you help me get angry enough for the taint to make me stand up on my own and spare us both the embarrassment.” Carver was surprisingly quiet after that, but it was like Connor could _hear_ the various options he had being picked up and discarded like chips on a card table.

“Okay. Fine. How angry?” He finally settled. “Where are we on the scale of _rolling eyes_ to _obliteration by lightning?_ ”

“I’m thinking _I intentionally poured lavender oil on your book_ -level anger.”

“You _what?_ ”

“No, not you angry: me angry.”

“You fucking _what?_ ” Connor was supposed to be getting _angry_ , but something about that sharp _pitch_ just made his cheeks twitch and try to smile. No, he wasn’t supposed to sound _funny._ “Son of a _bitch_ I told you not to!”

“And I ignored you.” This wasn’t working.

“Well fine! How about this: I piss in your garden every night because it’s easier than the chamber pot.”

“What’s the _matter_ with you?” Connor shot back, the flutter turned into a kick with a sharp blade that cut through his blood. If he could wrangle that feeling and _control it_ then-

“See? See! But mine was a lie because I’m not a _shit-eater_ like you are.” Why did he have to be _funny?_

“You _really_ suck at this.” Connor put his elbow on the side of the bath, and then his face on his hand.

“Do you need help?” Carver sounded like he was grinning through the question, there was even a goofy laugh tagged onto the end.

“ _Yes._ ”

“Just say that next time.”

He was helped out of the bath and into fresh clothes, but when he was sat down to his first hot cooked meal in days, it was with the expected third round.

“You must drink.”

“I will not, Jylan.”

“You must drink.” It was much easier to get angry at Jylan than at Carver.

“No.” It delayed his meal, but it was easier.

“If you will not drink, you will be made to drink.” Maybe it was because Jylan was Tranquil and didn’t have feelings to hurt if Connor was rude or difficult with him. Or maybe it was just Amara’s spectre hovering thick and toxic in the air between where Connor sat and where Jylan stood over the tray of hot food. Hell, it might have been as simple as Jylan’s poorly timed threat.

“You will not lay a hand on me, Jylan Ansera, nor will any other person in this castle.” The taint roared up ready and hurting, stinging his insides and cutting through the murk filling his chest so he could sit up properly and breathe deeply for the first time in hours. “I am a Grey Warden and I will be treated as such.”

“Your body is still heavily reliant on embrium in order to sustain itself.” Jylan told him, eyes blank, voice flat. “Your dosage has been reduced by one-quarter since you were remanded into my care in Redcliffe, and will be reduced by one eighth again before our departure for Vigil’s Keep. If levels are not maintained, you will revert back into withdrawal.” One eighth of three quarters was not enough. At this rate he wouldn’t be off the embrium completely for at _least_ a year.

“I have not taken that drug since locking myself into my room.” He stated. “I will not take the embrium no matter how you prepare it for me. I was remanded into your care, Jylan, and now I am removing myself from it. You are _my_ assistant, not the other way around, and you do not have the same experience with the Darkspawn taint that I do.” And now there was plenty of it swirling around in Connor’s veins. He was not angry enough for it to bleed out through his eyes, but it was very much there from the crown of his head down to the ends of his swollen toes. “I will continue to take the elfroot infusion you have prepared for me up until this point, but no more embrium.”

“Over-reliance on the darkspawn taint will have a profound and negative impact on your health in the long-term.” Jylan stood there, stone-still, in his blue and white robe with its decorated cuffs and hems. His blank face did not change and his half-lidded green eyes did not flutter or stray from Connor’s.

“And continued reliance on embrium _is_ having a profound and negative impact on my health _right now_.” Connor argued back. “No embrium: that is my final word on it.”

“Your superior will not uphold this decision.” Jylan was about as close to frustration or anger as a Tranquil could be, but Connor would not relent. He wanted too many things that were each far more important than his next dose of embrium. He would not take it.

“Then go bother him about it.” And if Jylan was incapable of being hurt or angered, then Connor took advantage of it with a dismissive nod. “Me? I want to eat.”

He was fed, given purified water and an entire pot of steaming elfroot and honey tea, but then had the poor sense to fall dead asleep in his chair with Mistress Howe’s name on his slack lips. When he realized he was in the Fade there came a moment’s pause where he considered waking up to set a protective ward, or just to finish what he’d been about to say… but his body needed sleep. He was already hurting it, he needed real sleep.

His sleep cycle had been more or less restored since arriving in South Reach. When Connor woke up it was morning again, and he was in _pain._

‘ _I will not live like this, I will not exist like this, I will not **die** like this. This is **my** body and it **will** do as I say._ ’ The taint came rumbling through him, it _hurt_ but it was his and he willed it through his blood. He let it fester in his bones, he let it chew against his stomach. Connor had been moved to his bed and laid there stiff and hurting until the taint had done its best to give back his control.

Just like yesterday, he had to rehearse what he wanted to say. He had to think very carefully about how he would spend his first breaths.

“I’m warning you now, that glow had better not be directed at me.” A stern, rough voice that was familiar and welcome to him. Now if only Nathaniel had not been sitting on the side of his bed _opposite_ the way Connor woke up facing, because that meant moving. His limbs were more willing to cooperate now than they had yesterday, and rolling over to find the senior Warden did not destroy his energy reserves.

Nathaniel was dressed comfortably in thick black britches and a long blue tunic. There was a soft leather book in his lap under his tattooed hand, and he was sitting with one ankle hiked up over his knee, comfortably reclined in his chair where he’d been either waiting for Connor to wake up, or prepared for it to be a while. Sparing himself his first spoken words of the day, Connor answered Nathaniel’s warning with a shake of his head. He limbered up one arm and his sore fingers, and gestured over himself before forcing himself to speak.

“It helps.” The taint. It helped him. “I’m not mad.”

“Mind if I tell you that I _am?_ ” Nathaniel asked, a scowl on his rough face as he dropped his foot to the floor and leaned over both his knees to leer at Connor. He’d rehearsed this in his mind and Connor was ready for it.

“May I see Warden Velanna?”

“Only if it’s to-”

“-apologize.” They both said together, and Connor gave a tired nod. “Yes, sir, it is.” Nathaniel looked like he chewed his tongue for a few moments, lips curling like there was something bitter in his mouth.

“You ever speak to her like that again, Connor, then as her husband I’ll make you pay for it.” The hunter made his statement without a trace of humour or exaggeration, and Connor would have been very wrong to imply either. Nathaniel was not joking, he had no reason to. “You’re ill and you’ve been through hell, but you _do not_ get to take that out on the rest of us. Least of all those of us that’ve stayed with you.”

Speaking to Velanna had been on his mind since he’d shouted her out of his room and locked them all away from him, but going through Nathaniel first had not occurred to him. This now seemed like a foolish oversight on his part. He nodded to acknowledge his mentor’s promise because it was a serious one, and it felt fair to him.

Yes, he _had_ been through hell. He’d been through more than Nathaniel or Velanna knew, he’d experienced more than any of them understood. The taint drew heavily on _how much_ the others _didn’t know_ and filled him with scratching, painful burns. However, there was also a quiet part of his mind, a soft place where Kindness had tethered itself to him like a ribbon in the wind that said: no, he did not get to use that gap or those awful things to hurt the people who cared about him. Nathaniel was being fair to him, and if Connor was going to respect his mentor then he’d make sure he followed that warning and kept on the right side of his words.

“I’d have said anything to anyone, sir.” His voice was still hushed but it was coming back, he would get it back soon. “And I still would have been wrong for it. I would like to apologize to Warden Velanna.”

Nathaniel grumbled but he did get up and leave, giving Connor enough time to make his slow, staggering way out of bed with his staff to keep him upright. He drank some of the water and cold tea from last night, washed his face and neck in the basin near the bed, and shaved. He was hungry by the time he heard voices coming back towards his room, and took a seat on his bed again just before-

“No, I did not _say anything stupid_.”

“You do not threaten an ill man.” Warden Velanna scolded her husband from the hallway.

“You’re his healer and he was being a shit-head.” Nathaniel defended.

“Oh, _grow up,_ Vhenan _._ ” And then the Warden Sergeant pushed into the room. She was wearing a long yellow wool dress with a thickly woven brown shawl around her shoulders. Her pearly white hair was braided and twisted behind her head, withered ears displayed and thin mouth pursed with irritation as she looked over Connor and around the room briefly. When she looked back at him properly, she narrowed her eyes at him shrewdly.

“Warden Velanna,” Connor inclined his head to her. “I-”

“Give me one good reason why you’re sitting up and not in your blankets when you haven’t had embrium in four days,” she demanded, cutting him off.

“The taint,” was his answer. Velanna scowled a little more, and then crossed the floor to him. He knew what she was going to do and braced for when her thin, sharp hands grasped his face and turned his head this way and that, a small white light conjured near his face so she could see his eyes, and then order his mouth open to check his tongue and gums.

“Abusing the taint like that is dangerous, and possibly lethal,” she warned, releasing his face and going to the table where she clicked her tongue at the cold, empty pot. “Did you drink that waste?” She asked him, the lid of the tea-pot in hand.

“Um- yes?” He croaked. “Elfroot stays potent if it sits out. I was thirsty.”

“This is a castle, Warden Guerrin, not some dirt-dug hovel in the Wending Wood.” She scolded further. “You can order hot water: they have that in abundance.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t know what else he was supposed to say.

“You, out.” Velanna pointed at her husband with the order, and he balked at it.

“Velanna, you-”

“ _Out_. Good-bye.”

“But-”

“Don’t make me throw you out in front of him, it’s undignified; this is a private conversation, Nathaniel.” Nathaniel did not like this, but after a firm stand-off of several seconds, she followed up with: “It’s _Connor_ , Nate. He’s not going to attack me!”

“He’s got a _temper…_ ” Nathaniel grumbled and Connor thought that was _unfair_ , sir. “I’ll be with the others then. Don’t say anything stupid, either of you.”

“ _Out_.” He finally did leave, and Connor was better prepared than expected when Velanna turned on him again with her arms folded and her tongue curled sharply behind her teeth. “You owe me an apology.” She hissed, and Connor nodded to her.

“Yes, I do. I-”

“I don’t particularly care to hear it however.” O- Oh… No, that made sense, he’d been horrid to her, and- “You don’t blame a frightened horse for kicking or an injured dog for biting. You don’t respond well to heavy-handed measures when you’re under stress, Warden. This is the second time I’ve provoked you and this time I should have known better.” Connor had an argument on his tongue but he forgot it when she mentioned a second time? Second what? Heavy-handed when he- oh.

In the Fade, when they’d only just begun releasing the Grey Wardens from the Nightmare and Connor had worried Evie and Carver to the point where they had pleaded with Velanna to calm him down as if it were just some mage thing. Velanna had tried to ‘ _knock some sense’_ by cracking her staff on his head, and Connor had let his temper finally snap and carry him miles away from them to escape the indignity.

“You have my apologies, Warden.” She said stiffly, arms folded like steel across her chest. “For both of those times. Fighting with you when you’re in such a state was foolish the first time and simply callous now. The Warden Commander already chided me for it.” That was something else all together for him to apologize for then, but only once his head stopped _spinning_.

“I…” She was apologizing to _him?_ “I accept, Warden Velanna. But I’m still at fault for my own actions. I had no right to throw words at you for something that was years before I joined the Grey Wardens.” His head felt heavy and it was hard not look down at the floor, but this was important for him to say and Connor made sure to look at her. “Your reasons, your choices, whatever it was that came from them: none of that has anything to do with me and I had no right to bring them up. I betrayed Nathaniel’s confidence in me by saying what I did. I am neither a dog nor a horse, and I’m sorry both for my actions and their effect on you.”

She was very quiet after her finished speaking. He almost thought her long ears had drooped slightly, her grey eyes a bit wider and thin lips pinched a bit more than usual. She kept her arms folded and was quite still, but when her words finally came to her they were as blunt as ever.

“So it’s not a Circle thing, is it?”

“A Circle thing?” Connor repeated.

“Being an asshole. It’s not something that’s just inherent in all Circle mages, is it?”

“I… I don’t think so? No?” This didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I didn’t mean to offend you further, I-”

“You haven’t.” She cut him off quickly. “It’s just that when I hear the word _apology_ from your type, humans or members of the Chantry’s Circles, I don’t usually get my hopes up about what comes next.” That just made things _worse_.

“I’m not sure I know how else to give an apology,” he admitted. “Not unless you mean a fake one.”

“A fake one, that’s it.” She told him. “The Dalish hold apologies and their acceptance or refusal to a very high standard. If you’ve offended someone and you meant it, you don’t just throw words at them to make the censure go away, you have to own up to it. And if you didn’t mean it, then it doesn’t matter; it’s not the action, it’s the impact.”

“I think in this case it was both, ma’am.” Connor tried to say what seemed right, and was rewarded with a stiff, but gentle smile. “Thank you for letting me try.” She nodded to him briefly.

“Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to go request hot water and something proper for you to eat.”

“Thank you, Warden.”

“And your embrium?”

“I don’t want it anymore.” She raised a scarred palm to him, and Connor pursed his lips hoping this wasn’t going to become another clash.

“Relying on the taint is not good for you.”

“Neither is relying on embrium.” Now she raised both palms so he could see them, and then brought her hands together calmly. It seemed like a gesture to end the discussion and Connor didn’t say anything until she did.

“I leave this between you, Ansera, and the Warden Commander,” she told him simply. Connor could only nod his head again.

“Thank you, Warden Velanna.”

That was one apology out of the way. Connor ate a heavy breakfast and stayed in bed for most of the morning, pleased when Carver came to sit with him. The room was not as hot, the curtains and tapestries taken away from one of the windows to let more light in. Connor was uncomfortable, his chest tight and limbs weak, breaths short at best and physically drained by summoning the taint in his blood, but he was stubborn.

“I haven’t seen Jylan today…” He commented softly, propped up on pillows and _wishing_ he could get up. Just stand and walk out of the room without the fear or threat of falling flat on his face. He had Carver’s hand clasped in his, feeling the rough callouses of his fingers and palm, his brooding presence in direct conflict with the patient and close way he stayed next to him.

“He thinks you’re a giant asshole and doesn’t want to be your friend anymore. I caught him crying in the larder.”

“Oh. Oops…”

“Okay but if he _was_ crying, it’d freak you out, right?”

“If Jylan spontaneously un-tranquiled himself, Carver, I would be a hell of a lot more than _freaked out_.”

“Would you start mother-henning him the way he has been over you?”

“Oh, _Jylan_ is the mother hen, right. I see it now.”

“Asshole.”

They were in an odd place together and Connor knew it. There had been three very powerful moments in the Fade that neither of them had talked about with each other. There had been the time Connor conjured him and Carver, unable to tell the difference between the Fade and reality, had pulled Connor so close and so tightly and kissed him _so fully_ that if he thought back on the moment it still resonated. The fear broken by relief and the great outpouring of love coming through a simple kindly gesture.

But Carver had not mentioned that moment when Connor rescued him from the Nightmare. There had been that quiet moment, that ill-timed pause, where Connor had told his friend how much he loved him. _That_ he loved him. He’d told him and tried to kiss him, and Carver’s reaction, although warm, hadn’t been much of anything. A comment about following him, staying with him even if it meant staying in the Fade and wasting away in the real world. A throw-away line about Kindness’ over-excited display. Evie’s teasing that had driven Connor mad at the time but now he realized he should have listened a bit more to what exactly the two had been saying.

Carver had tried to make up for that awkward confession of his by giving one of his own just outside the Nightmare’s tower. Loyalty had interrupted that time and there had been so many other things to deal with- but Carver had still _said it_ , hadn’t he? Returned that pledge? Answered it with his own? It all felt like such an awful blur in his head when he tried to pick out the details.

Now here they were, weeks later, and Connor didn’t know what it was. Evie would come and lay with him, kiss him, embrace him, tell him calm and quiet things. She called him dear to her and she worried for him, but she couldn’t stay cooped up in his rooms for hours at a time without understandably begging for release. It was _boring_ watching Connor sleep, hard to watch when simply breathing was a labour, and he didn’t fault her for needing to escape. Maker, he would have gladly gone with her on patrol of South Reach Arling, or training in Caer Blackwood’s sword yard. She cared and she was kind and she was what Connor had been so desperate to keep safe: sweetness and safety and laughter and tenderness. He wanted to go home and be sweet to her, gift her with nice things, talk to her of whatever filled their days or caught their attention, make her _smile_ , listen to her _laugh_.

Evie he felt he understood, Carver he did not. He didn’t have the nerve to ask either of them if they were still sleeping together. It was none of his business either way and didn’t bother him. Connor had no real interest in sex, he hadn’t before and he _certainly_ did not now in his new and _wonderful_ condition. Loving someone didn’t give you a claim to them. You could make promises yes but you couldn’t just wild and openly assume, _‘I love you so that means I own you now_ ’. There had been enough ownership and controlling in the Circles, Connor was fine with letting that go.

Carver had worried over him endlessly since the battle. He’d been inconsolable and miserable throughout the entire campaign. He hovered, pestered, _mothered_ him in a constant and at times overbearing way. He’d kissed Connor’s hands, held him, helped him, been present and attentive and sleepless and by all accounts _loving_ but… he never said anything? Connor just kept waiting and expecting something from him, but he didn’t know what? Maybe Carver didn’t either?

He could get jokes now. They could annoy each other, say rude things. They could act like friends again and yes that was good and it was nice and it was comforting. But neither of them had called each other _‘friend’_ since the battle. Carver hadn’t said he loved him, hadn’t tried to kiss him- as in _actually_ kiss him. He’d run up to and kissed him in the dream, he’d chased Connor through the Nightmare’s entire domain just to say he loved him in the Fade. Why wouldn’t he say anything _now?_

 _‘Do I want to have this conversation now?’_ No, he did not want to have this conversation _right now_. But he did want it eventually. It was necessary. Yes. Right now would work.

“You look dead tired by the way,” Carver said with his hand still folded warmly over Connor’s. “Just take a nap. I’ll wake you up if Surana walks in.”

“Mm…” No, no nap. He’d accidentally happened upon Lady Morrigan’s presence in the Fade last night and had not experienced such a panic since the Nightmare that attacked Vigil’s Keep. He squeezed Carver’s hand instead. They should have this talk. “Carver?”

“You’re gonna say you have to take a piss and I’m gonna tell you you’re shit out of luck.” No, _asshole_. It made him smile and turn his head a little to look at him properly. His chest _hurt_ and he felt his face twist a little, eyes closed and…

Connor had broken his focus to cast a protective barrier over Carver after he put himself and Evie in terrible danger against the Nightmare. Connor’s reward had been the Archdemon snapping him up in its jaws and _eating him_. He deserved a fucking-

“Don’t call my name and then make that face.” Carver scolded, but he did it in an _annoying_ voice that made it _easier_ to… there. “And _ow_ , I like having my hand in one piece, please. Is this seriously better than just taking the embrium?”

 _“Yes_.” He grunted, opening his eyes again with a sharp, cutting pain doing damage in his gut, but it fanned out quickly and helped him _breathe…_ He’d been eaten by a dragon to safeguard Carver and Evie’s lives: they were going to have this damn conversation. “Carver?”

“Right here, unless you’ve been struck blind again,” he quipped, his black hair a messy tangle flopped over his head, his strong jaw and profile turned towards him. Connor was glad to be sitting mostly up-right, but he wished the taint wouldn’t make him _sweat_ like this… “Here, I’ll get you more tea.”

“No.” Don’t get up, stay.

“What is it then?” He didn’t look very good in green, Connor hoped that was the only green tunic he had. He was clean-shaven and bright eyed and his bowed lips were…

“When are you going to kiss me?”

Carver. Went. Pink.

Not scarlet, not crimson, not a brilliant red flush, no. The Grey Warden went pink. He went the exact same colour as the apple tree blossoms of Val Royeaux. It bloomed in his cheeks and swallowed his forehead, swept around his wide eyes and down the crooked bridge of his nose. The flush meant his skin would be warm and if he was shocked then he would hesitate and be careful and _oh_ \- just please kiss him.

“I- I…” or… stutter and- “That-” choke on his words. Look terrified and _embarrassed_ and snatch his hand away from Connor’s like… okay then. Well, that was informative. “Connor-”

“The Fade is confusing,” he made himself say, not the words he’d hoped to use next. “People misunderstand things. It’s okay.” It was not okay, it was not what Connor _wanted_ , this… He could live with it but Carver had _told him_ he… “Don’t force this just because you said something and it came out-”

“I love you.” Connor stopped talking, he shut himself up and looked at Carver. “That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? Like it isn’t obvious?” Fear bit him with the way Carver said it: _that’s what you want, isn’t it?_ Like it was about to be dangled in front of him and then smashed against the wall for being so quaint and stupid a wish. “Well I do love you, you idiot mage, but you’re not going to order me around because of it.”

“That’s not it,” Connor reached for him, begging please, please take his hand again. “Carver, that’s not what I meant.” He’d just wanted to hear it said, he’d just wanted to _know_. To truly know and to be sure and not have to wake up and wonder how much of the dream had been genuine and how much of it just Connor’s own needs and desires bleeding through. “I love you, please stay…”

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” was the petulant huff that answered him. “I was just making a point.” His hand was good and strong and _real_ when Connor grasped it again. “Cut that out now, hey- you’re supposed to be angry to keep the taint up, not- Connor? Woah, stop that- look at me.”

He tried but it was hard, the tears which sprung from his eyes were filled with crushing relief, the constricting fear releasing so fast and fully that it overwhelmed him. He wasn’t sobbing, but his face was wet, breaths thick, and his eyes blurred terribly. It was especially hard when Carver moved from his chair to sit on the edge of the bed in front of him, because now he was _close_ and Connor was _so relived_ …

“I was asleep for too long,” he choked, and Carver listened with his fingers squeezing tightly and his free hand rubbing Connor’s arm. “It all blurs together and if one thing falls out of place then the rest of it comes apart. We said things but maybe you didn’t remember, or I mis-remembered, or it didn’t really happen and it was just what I’d hoped for. I’m sorry- I’m sorry, I just didn’t know, I-”

“I love you,” Carver told him straight and _thank you_ … “Not in some sudden and dramatic way either, though Maker Knows Evie likes to tease me regardless. Knew there was something wrong when I found myself bugging Garevel about that old workshop in the Vigil and why no one was using it.”

“That was you?” Connor asked, and he closed his crying eyes when Carver leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. It was real and it was what he wanted. “And- and then you let me tell you about it like you’d never guess what he’d said?”

“And then we went and got drunk off our asses in the middle of the day to celebrate, yes.” Come closer- _come closer_. Connor tugged on him, at his arms and on the green of his tunic. Come lay down close with him, talk and kiss and be at peace. “You should get some rest, Connor.”

“No.” He hushed, eyes closed. “Kiss me.”

“No.”

“Why not?” He was so close; it would have been so easy. All he had to do was lean down a little more and that would be enough for a kiss to find its way. Just lean down warm and tender and let his bowed lips just- no, not his _thumb_ , Carver, with his _lips_.

“Because I’m not very good at doing things the first time.” The wide, calloused pad of his thumb brushed over Connor’s lips, this way and that trying to be tender but not enough to make up for a _kiss_. “And-”

“You’re doing just fine now _kiss m-_ ” That stupid thumb pushed on his lips and slurred the demand so badly Connor had to stop and look offended by it. Rude.

“Let me finish.” No, _kiss him_. If he was leaning down so close like this, his breaths close enough for Connor to feel and forehead all but touching his, then it had better have been to kiss him. “I am in love with a stubborn, head-strong mage with a self-consuming work-ethic and an infatuation with dangerous and unpleasant plants. He-”

“Is this about the spindleweed again?” Connor slurred from behind that annoying thumb. His reward for interrupting was Carver removing his thumb and covering Connor’s whole mouth with the palm of his hand. It wasn’t pressed down on him or meant to actually muzzle him, hell, he could still breathe through his mouth without issue and could probably have pulled the hand off if he tried. The point was that he was muffled, and he gave Carver a _sharp_ look for the indignity.

“ _He_ ,” Carver continued, “or _you_ , in this case, can get away with pretty much anything because no one ever would expect that sweet, soft-spoken, effortlessly kind, and bashful idiot to take advantage of how much people like him. That’s how he wrestled a Formari away from the Guildsmen and then convinced the man who told the Tranquil to stay _away_ from Vigil’s Keep in the first place to let his friend work in the castle again. It’s why I spent days sanding down tables and fixing the wall and window in the same workshop- yes?” He removed the hand.

“You _volunteered_ to fix the window, you asked about the workshop _yourself_ and-” Carver kissed his forehead again, then surprised him by leaning down further. Connor reached up quickly to hook his hands behind Carver’s neck, tried to pull, to coax to- “Why _not?_ ” He whined in misery when Carver kissed his cheek, then dropped his face to Connor’s shoulder, escaping the kiss completely.

“Because it’s _really_ bugging you,” Carver teased. He planted his arms on the bed and swung his legs up, moving about until he was laying over Connor with his face down in the crook of his neck, body resting on him, and Connor’s legs shifted and moved enough for Carver to settle between them. It wasn’t until Carver was done settling that Connor realized oh, this was a new position. Carver kissed his neck and it was his turn to go pink.

“You won’t kiss me properly, but you _will_ -”

“ _Hush_ ,” Carver murmured. He mouthed at the same spot again and Connor felt his toes curl, bringing one hand up to hold and brush down through Carver’s black hair. “Think of how easy the taint is to call when you’ve got me being a complete arse like this, hmm?” Actually no, it wasn’t easy. This wasn’t making Connor angry at all, if anything it was keeping him very quiet. This felt _nice_.

“I love you…” Connor said quietly, and when Carver found his hand and threaded their fingers together, palms close, he loved him a little bit more. “Kiss me?”

“When this is all over,” Carver breathed against his skin, “and we’re safely back at home in Amaranthine. Then certainly, my love, I’ll do much more than just kiss you…” Connor felt his touch travel to the other side of his neck, let out a weak but relaxed breath in his lover’s embrace, and _relaxed…_

They were going to go _home_.


	48. Departure

 

Commander Surana could not afford to idle any longer in South Reach. Connor knew he had to return to Denerim, then back to Amaranthine, and then probably continue on towards Highever. The man was an Arl and he had obligations that far exceeded Connor’s recovery from the embrium. Honestly, it embarrassed him that the Warden Commander had even lingered this long on his account.

“Velanna and Jylan are here to help me.” After a fortnight without embrium Connor found it almost impossible to sleep. If he slept he lost the taint and his body would fall into terrible shakes and convulsions, frightening and painful. When he was awake he was constantly hungry and sore, the taint running him ragged and the lack of sleep making him feel hollow and brittle. “You have obligations elsewhere.”

“My obligations are none of your concern, Corporal.” There was still snow on the ground but Connor knew as well as anyone that winter was losing its hold over Ferelden. He could go outside now, walk along Caer Blackwood’s ramparts or down through her courtyards and retaining buildings. He was outside with the Warden Commander right now, forcing himself to walk longer distances each day even if it was hurting him almost as much as the taint. “I am not yet prepared to leave.”

“But you need to be in Highever by the time the pass to Soldier’s Peak opens up from the thaw.” Connor walked with his staff to help him along, both he and Surana dressed for the cold wet weather although the sky was clear today: no extra snow or rain. He’d gone out with it raining once already despite the firm disapproval of the others, but if Connor was ever going to reach home again he couldn’t expect a dry ride all the way there. He had to be able to handle getting wet and being cold. It was a chill that could be banished by fire and magic, so he didn’t have to fear it the way he had at Redcliffe. It still did frighten him, yes, but he knew better and was determined to master it.

“I don’t need to do anything or _be_ anywhere, Warden.” Surana rebuked him again as they walked. “I was busy during the Breach and Corypheus’s rampage, I do not _need_ to be present to watch Soldier’s Peak reconsider their terrible predicament.”

“But _sir_ ,” Surana gave a sharp tisk, looked away, and stabbed the end of his staff into the ground across Connor’s- _“Gah!_ ” -ankle. He tried and failed to catch himself, and landed flat across the wet, muddy ground.

“I don’t doubt your spirit or your magic, Connor. Get up.” He was ordered but his whole body was shaking and it was _hard_ to move. He wasn’t even angry about being tripped, he was just _hurting_ from the fall. Surana stepped in front of him, crouched, and offered him a gloved hand to help him rise. It still hurt, but with the help at least he was able to find his feet again. “But physical recovery takes time. I did not promise the Vigil I would free you and then abandon you in some snowy southern keep to go take care of other business. I swore to my Wardens and my Arling that I would deliver you _back home_. Would you see me break that oath?”

The correct answer was _‘No, sir_ ’, followed by a polite _‘Thank you, sir’_ , but Connor curled his tongue for a moment instead. What he ended up saying was:

“No disrespect, Commander, but you’re not a delivery boy.”

Loyalty had whispered to Connor over and over again that the cornerstone of the spirit’s own power was the presence and ability to _trust_. Connor had argued hotly and stupidly with Surana in the Fade and had not only escaped censure for it, he’d been practically _rewarded_ for stomping his feet and howling no at the Archmage. He wasn’t willing to go quite so far now over this issue, but he was going to be heard, and thus far Surana was hearing him out even if only to disagree further. That was fine, they didn’t have to come to an accord or have the Warden Commander change his mind- although Connor wished he _would_ , what mattered was that he was arguing and not getting in trouble for it.

“Do you think you can change my mind, Corporal?” Connor could _trust_ his Commander to hear him speak his disagreement in full without striking him dead or down. Was that what Loyalty had meant?

“No, but I can hope and I can try.” He had his hands on his knees for a few more moments as he spoke, his staff tucked under his arm until he straightened up and leaned on it. Surana’s fingers were feeling the iron grooves of his own staff, then he took a step back from Connor and twisted the rod about, letting it land in both his hands and hang across his body. Oh _fuck_.

“Do you have anything to back up those words?” Shit. _Shit, shit, shit._ Connor should have seen this coming, stupid mage, anybody else would have. “If not, I think we can consider this topic settled.”

Andraste take pity on him, Connor picked up his staff and held it in both hands, mimicking the simple ready stance with his own weapon.

“I’m not sure if I’m impressed with you or concerned, Warden.” Surana was not smiling very much, but he was smiling a little as the bloodstone clutched at the top of his staff ignited threatening.

“I thought you would just challenge me with magic,” Connor groaned, but did not lower the staff.

“I already said I have confidence in that realm. Very well.” This was going to _hurt_. “We fight until we either strike one another or take a knee. If you win, I will depart from South Reach within two days. When I win, this discussion will be over.”

Surana struck out with the haft of his black staff and aimed for the middle between Connor’s hands, intentionally trying to see if he could hold a block. It surprised both of them when he held, but the shock went straight up his arms, buckled his elbows and rattled through his shoulders. He barely got the end of his staff up to catch and swat down the bloodstone head when it came swinging down at him, but the wide sweep of the staff winded him. He couldn’t step away or get the weapon back up to counter the sharp smack that landed hard across his shoulder and the middle of his back. The blow was sharp and simple. Hard, yes, but not bone-breaking or even meant to leave much of a bruise.

“No. Stay up.” Connor staggered from it anyways. He tried to plant his staff in the ground but then stumbled backwards- the wrong way for that to help. His feet and balance went different ways until he blundered right into something that did not move. Surana took him hard around one arm and pressed a fist to his back to help him stop, and Connor only wound up on one knee rather than flat on the ground again. He was breathing very hard.

“A little bit at a time, Connor.”

“That was _sad_ …”

“Dropping your staff from its own weight would have been sad,” the Archmage corrected, then helped him to stand again. “You’re nearly there. We’ll see how you feel when we return to the keep.” Connor just had to nod and tell himself not to be too upset about it.

The way he _wanted_ embrium was only becoming worse. The taint hurt and Surana showed up more and more often to sit or talk to him. He encouraged and eventually had to _help_ Connor put himself into the half-awake calm of meditation. He drew pages of magical equations and spell symbols for Connor to look at and memorize when he felt too weak to walk or go outside. They were things that had to do with the Fade, with healing, with his own body and his own connection to Kindness and Loyalty. Surana did not make him practice magic, he gave him theories and questions and things to think about when he couldn’t physically distance himself from the need for the drug that had poisoned him like this.

When it hurt so much he wanted to weep, and hated himself because he couldn’t stand, and he wanted to die because he wanted freedom but the drug was keeping him from flying free of this place and returning to the life he _wanted so, so much_ , Surana brought him magic. On days when it was all he could do to stop the persistent vomiting, when it felt like he clung to existence just to suffer for it, his body rejecting anything that wasn’t embrium in a maddening attempt to convince him to just _give in_ and take the drug again- there was spell-work and theory and other things there just to distract him. Surana made him study, forced him to ask questions, sometimes even fed him false information just so when Connor stopped and pondered on the conflicting rules he would point them out and argue with him, even if he had to do it under a thick film of sweat or with his mouth burning with the sour flavour of vomit.

They did not meet in the Fade. Neither of them wanted Connor to rely on sleep again like a crutch to help him escape what was happening to his waking self. When he slept he slept for real, or he wandered the Fade alone with only Kindness and Loyalty there for company. When he was strong enough to walk, he walked. He went outside with Carver helping keep his steps steady. He lifted his staff and made his arms twist and lift and swing the rod with Evie’s careful supervision and help when he wanted to try and manage _any_ of the exercises he’d used to regularly to train with back home.

When he could not walk Surana would come and drill him on magic. Spells he didn’t know, fields of magic he wasn’t familiar with, theories neither of them could go into great detail with because Caer Blackwood had none of the books that were plentiful in Surana’s personal library back home. The only thing Connor refused to do was what Surana suggested only once: talk to Rowan.

“No.”

“It might help her understand her magic a little more if you-”

“Commander please, I said no.”

He did not want to see Rowan. He did not want to speak with her, look at her, help her, or acknowledge her in any way. Surana mentioned bringing her to Vigil’s Keep with them, asked him if Connor wanted him to try and see if the College would consent to have her remain in Amaranthine with Surana himself as her mentor and overseer. Connor struggled hard to find a polite way to tell the Archmage his thoughts on the matter rested firmly between _‘I don’t care_ ’ and _‘send her away’_.

He focused on trying to regain the ability to ride a horse. Issan had born Carver from Denerim to Vigil’s Keep, and then carried Jylan down into the Hinterlands. The horse was a far greater comfort to him than his sister, the old mare showing her age with her great patience and steady steps as Connor fought hard to find the strength to mount up. Riding even a short distance within the castle courtyard exhausted him the first few times he tried it, but he kept at it. He wanted to go home.

On Wintersend, the day before the first of Spring, Commander Surana finally gave the order for them to leave South Reach. There was a fine banquet of roasted winter meats and many toasts for good harvests and well-wishes as the coldest part of the year was bid goodbye. Caer Blackwood and it surrounding settlements brimmed with seasonal merriment. There was drinking, dancing, performances, singing, and the Chant of Light echoed loud and bright from tables and through decorated halls. The courtyard was strung with winter ribbons and boughs of evergreen to help sweep away the last of the snow. Connor wasn’t strong enough to dance or well enough to drink, but he clapped and stomped and sang with the other Grey Wardens, and was happy to watch the festivities pass around him.

Lady Morrigan had not been at Vigil’s Keep for the tournament last summer, but she was still in South Reach and the Warden Commander danced exclusively with his mistress. They shirked the group dances with their crossing hands and changing partners, opting only for the dances which were almost Orlesian in style, but not well-practiced by South Reach’s court. Connor hadn’t known Surana could dance, but corrected himself as he watched the way the couple moved. Of course Surana knew how to dance. There were maybe only two things in the whole world he _didn’t_ know, so of course he could dance.

Evie and Carver, in contrast, paired off immediately for any dance that involved many people following the same pattern of steps. Jumping, twisting, cavorting around, plenty of laughter and torchlight. Evie had no gown like the Commander’s wife, but wrapped a thick red scarf around her hips which swung and trailed with the songs. Carver was heavy-handed with her but grinning just as brightly, pulling her along, sending her into twirls and spins with the beat of the drums and flutes.

Because he could not dance and she didn’t care to, Carver let An’eth teach him a card game she’d learned from her time in the Free Marches. Hassick was an amicable drunk who tried and failed to play along, eventually running off for a dance or three. Jylan knew the rules of the game and because An’eth said it would please her, he was dealt in with a hand. Connor hadn’t actually _seen_ him do something fun before, and this wasn’t reading or sewing or working with reagents. It was a simple game meant for fun, but Jylan played and damn him if he didn’t clear the table out in a flash, only to deal the money back out because he was not playing for the coppers, he was playing because An’eth had asked him to.

An’eth asked but Jylan did not consent to dance, claiming he did not know the steps, would be unable perform them well, and would make the other dancers uncomfortable if they saw him. He retired early in the evening to prepare for tomorrow’s departure. Connor acknowledged but did not watch his friend leave, he was watching the Warden whose eyes followed the Tranquil with a quiet, melancholy light. He really hoped that what he thought he saw lingering in that gaze wasn’t actually the truth.

“An’eth,” he said, drawing her attention back to him in the happy, celebrating hall. “What does _vhenan_ mean in the Dalish tongue?” She looked at him with quiet surprise tugging on her painted face, her short orange hair having grown out quite long until she’d shaved off one side of it and pulled the rest over. Strange style, but she seemed happy with it.

“As in _ma vhenan?_ ” She asked, and he nodded, giving her his full attention in the noise. “ _Vhenan_ simply means _heart_ , _ma vhenan_ is like saying _‘my heart’_ in Trade.” So that was what Velanna was always calling Nathaniel, it made a lot more sense now.

“What about ‘ _lethallin’_? _”_ He probed a bit more. “I know Warden Velanna sometimes calls you something close to that, but you both use it for Jylan.” She thinned her lips at him briefly, shuffling the cards between her thin fingers and dealing blindly for a game they hadn’t decided on.

 “It… doesn’t really translate.” She explained, shifting around on her seat. “It can be like saying _young one_ or _cousin_ , but it’s… warmer than that? _Lethallan_ is for girls, _lethallin_ for boys. But if you call someone your _lethallin_ then it’s like you’re promising to protect them, you will always have your _lethallin’s_ back like they’re your brother or something similar- but it’s not the same as calling them your _family_. It doesn’t work in the King’s language, I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright, that’s what different languages are for.” Connor didn’t know how to get to the point he wanted without making it awkward or rude on his part. If An’eth carried a fancy for Jylan, no matter how small, it would just have to be something she learned to let go of on her own. And if he was _wrong_ , then there was no reason for him to bring it up at all.

“What was Jylan like before they did that to him?” But she asked her question and Connor was looking at her when she touched the middle of her forehead, the same place where Jylan wore the Tranquil brand. “I didn’t like the way you spoke to him at first when he came to the Vigil. You treated him like a servant, and while I trust and respect you, Corporal, I _do_ , it wasn’t easy watching a mage order and make decisions for one of the el’vhen like that. But you always said _‘I know what you were like_ ’, and that seemed to explain everything. He never stays mad at you either, not even when the two of you argue.”

“He can’t feel anger,” Connor reminded her, still sort of reeling from the allusion to Tevinter. It really hadn’t occurred to him that his magic and Jylan’s race would conjure up memories like that, but that was an oversight on his end and no one else’s.

“He can feel offended, and that’s almost the same thing,” An’eth corrected him. “Just because he says it isn’t important doesn’t mean it isn’t real when something offends him. He can barely stand Hawke, he just knows he has to put up with him because he’s important and a big help to you.” Oh, that… that was also something to think about… oh _Maker_. “But what was he like before? You’re the only one who knows.”

“He…” Connor tried but then found himself unable to answer. The first things that came to mind were poisoned by what he knew now about his friend. He hadn’t been a slack-off, he just hadn’t been able to read. He hadn’t been dismissive and lazy, he’d been unable to ask for help with something his two peers had already known and mastered years before him. He’d had a wicked sense of humour, the sort of person to pour warm water on a person’s bed just to make them think they’d wet themselves, but how much of that was just never having any other way to prove himself strong enough not to be picked on?

“I didn’t know him as well as I should have, An’eth.” He finally admitted. “We were friends, but I was too self-involved and busy feeling badly about myself to really pay attention. He was funny, always making jokes and doing silly, stupid things with his magic. But lessons were very hard for him and he couldn’t learn anything from books. The Circle was unfair to him.” And Amara had betrayed him, somehow, in a way Jylan wouldn’t reveal.

“If he’d been born among the Dalish,” An’eth explained quietly, her voice just loud enough to rise over the music touting behind them. “Then he would have been trained by his clan’s Keeper as their first or second. He would have learned our history, about our gods, how to look after and safeguard a clan from enemies. No one would have ever burned a mark into his face.” Connor felt a deep sense of regret open up near his heart, but he didn’t have words to bridge the gap with. He knew that there were many mysteries in this world, many strange things whispered about in secret places. The inquisition had found the skulls of captured and sacrificed Tranquil littering the Hinterlands and other places, scattered about by the Venatori, but from the medic’s tents Connor had never been told what purpose the horrible practice had been for.

“He says he had a family in Gwaren,” An’eth continued when Connor said nothing. “Many brothers and sisters, but only a mother and her family. Do you think they would still be there? In the Alienage?”

“It depends on what happened to them during the Blight,” Connor admitted. “I arrived at the Circle about six months after the Battle of Denerim, but Jylan was a few weeks ahead of me. His family might have stayed in Gwaren but after sending him away they could have moved on, or by now they may have scattered. I really don’t know.”

“Do you think I could search for them?”

“To what end?” Connor asked. “I mean, if you could get permission from the Warden Commander and take someone along with you so you’d not be travelling alone across the country, then yes I suppose you could. But what then?” _‘Hello, I know your brother who was taken away by Templars as a child, but he was made Tranquil and now serves in Amaranthine without emotion or dreams’_? Unless- “Wait, Jylan mentioned them to you?”

“Of course he did.” She answered, wrinkling her nose at him and shuffling the cards again, dealing them out what might have been for the second or third time. When she passed him a card again Connor closed his hand over hers.

“Did he _ask_ you to find them?” She shook his hand off.

“No. But they’re his _family_.” An’eth told him strongly, and looking at her sharp eyes Connor saw something painful resting in them that made his worries about her _feelings_ for Jylan irrelevant. This surpassed anything quasi-romantic, this was about a principle. “He deserves to know what’s become of them. They deserve to know he’s alive, regardless of what your human Chantry says about mages _or_ the Tranquil.”

Connor watched her for several seconds, a map of Ferelden unfolding in his mind. They were in South Reach, a few days east of Redcliffe, just south-east of Lake Calenhad’s shores and snug in its lowland basin. The Imperial highway would begin to taper northward from this point on, avoiding the worst of…

“Gwaren is almost directly east of us,” he said. “It’s far however, and right on the coast. The Imperial Highway doesn’t stretch that far but if you and another Warden can navigate the Brecillian Forest safely then Gwaren itself-”

“I would go with _Hahren_ Velanna and her husband Warden Howe, if possible. And you.” It broke Connor’s heart but he shook his head no.

“I’m not strong enough to cross rough country like that, not right now.” And _Maker_ that frustrated him. “You’d have to delay going to Gwaren entirely until I can be reinstated as a Grey Warden, possibly mid-spring or later at this point.” An’eth’s disappointment was clear from her slumped shoulders to the heavy pull on her face, but she nodded. “Listen, just- talk to Velanna and Nathaniel about whether they’d go with you. And if they say yes then between Nathaniel and I we can try to get the Commander to come around and agree to let you detour to Gwaren before returning home.”

“Thank you, Warden. You’re a good friend.” An’eth told him, and then they tried to go back and enjoy Wintersend.

Connor did not enjoy travelling again. He was overcome with relief that they were finally _going_ , but it was hard on him from the very beginning. He could saddle Issan and had packed what few things had been given to him: a rough saddlebag and several changes of clothing, a new travel kit of soap and comb and razor. Most of his Warden gear had been left behind in Denerim and he was looking forward to picking it up when they reached the capital. The hardest thing to leave without was _armour_ …

“I’m afraid you just don’t fit into any of mine.” Maker no. Surana meant it as a joke but even with the weight he’d lost Connor would never have squeezed into one of the Archmage’s robes. The Hero of Ferelden was far shorter than Connor was, nevermind an elf. Connor’s armour had been disposed of into the depths of Lake Calenhad and he just had to let it go one more time and hope for a new set from the Vigil.

Until then, he had to ride in layers of wool and a rough leather jerkin from South Reach. The trousers he was given felt just _barely_ thick enough for the cold weather, but at least the boots were of good make and better fit. He had a cloak and for the first time in months he dearly _missed_ the fur-lined hide robe he’d been given at Skyhold last spring. This would have been the perfect weather for wearing it, but of course that was still folded neatly and tucked away in his armoire back in Vigil’s Keep…

“So that’s where you had it put,” the Warden Commander commented bright and early that morning as they left Caer Blackwood behind. Connor didn’t know why he was riding at the head of their train of twenty Wardens and Silver Order militiamen, but at the front he was and when Connor voiced his whimsy the Commander was amused by it. “We couldn’t find it.”

“You- sent someone into my room?”

“A justified breach of privacy, if unpleasant.” Surana allowed, his dark blue robe fluttering as he rode, most of the silverite missing after the damage done to his breastplate and pauldron in Redcliffe. The gold robe as well as gone. It was strange seeing him ride without his helmet. “No more than a minute or two, just looking for anything that might have been useful to take. I thought of the robe but when it wasn’t hanging within sight it didn’t seem prudent to rifle through your drawers for it.”

“Was it you who commissioned it for me, sir?” It was cold but it wasn’t raining, Connor had to be content. He felt dizzy already and they’d hardly been on their way for a mile. “Back in Skyhold?” Surana clicked his tongue at him.

“Greedy little thing, aren’t you?” The Commander joked. “No, I ordered your staff and ring. It was Cullen who commissioned the robe after deciding to properly promote you within the Inquisition.” Uuh-

“Commander _Rutherford?_ ” Connor asked, stumped enough by this not to feel embarrassed when Surana actually _grinned_ at him, brief though it was.

“The very same. He had the crests changed to the Wardens after you were awarded the right to your Harrowing.”

Zevran chuckled along from the other side of the Commander as the company rode out and away. Caer Blackwood had a bustling town attached to it, most of the rooves thatched and the whole place built with wide lanes meant for carts and livestock to move easily about. They left the town at a steady canter and carried on down a muddy but stable road, Connor falling slowly back from the head of the column to ride among the Wardens when he felt his endurance beginning to fail. Issan had a smooth, even gait, but his body was protesting the constant rocking motion with a dull pain up his back and a weakness in his arms.

Kieran, Rowan, and Jylan were not expected to ride all the way home. They were in the same carriage that had carried Connor’s bedridden self to South Reach from Redcliffe, and Connor told himself firmly that he would ride ahead of that carriage but behind the Commander’s immediate entourage for the rest of the day. He ached and he hurt, but he kept himself going. It was Issan doing the hardest work, wasn’t she?

“Drink.” Evie’s voice told him, her gauntlet-clad hand nudging him as she drew her horse up next to his and held out her water skin. He had one of his own but he took hers, taking a heavy mouthful of water before passing it back. He didn’t feel any better for drinking, but he nodded thanks to her just the same. “It was good of us to leave today; the whole company is hung-over.”

“Did you enjoy last night?” Connor asked, telling himself that _yes_ , he would make conversation. If he could sit in a chair all day and night and talk to people, then he would sit on a damned horse and talk to people. He would get through this and he would make it home.

“Not as much as I would have if you’d been able to join us,” she told him from under her silverite helmet. He couldn’t see her face and she was clad in her polished silver armour for the first time in weeks, but it was good to have her riding next to him. Carver he was sure was further back behind the carriage. “Next time, no?”

“Next time,” he agreed. And then, because he had to: “If I promise to let you know if this becomes too hard for me, will you promise not to worry about me on the road?”

“No.” Connor heard the smile in that word, and when he looked at her she nodded as far as her helmet allowed. “But I am pleased to know you’re cautious about today. You will do fine, _chere_ , I am certain.”

“Thank you.”

Evie remained trotting along at his side for most of the day. When they stopped to rest the horses at mid-day he felt sick and debated simply not getting out of the saddle to spare himself having to climb back up- but Issan needed to be fed and watered and freed from the burden of his weight. He slid down, landed very hard, and barely kept his feet. It was embarrassing. Even a year ago he’d still known how to cleanly dismount a horse.

“It will either become much easier or much harder.” Zevran’s voice scared him _badly_ when he straightened up on his feet again. He turned and found the assassin not far from him, watching with a knowing look but lacking his smile for the moment. That concerned him, it was almost always better if Zevran was smiling. “How do your first ten miles on horseback feel?”

“Very sore,” Connor admitted. He was also nauseous, short of breath, and it was hard to focus his eyes. No. He would survive the first day. “We have an hour, yes?”

“A little less, but sure,” Zevran allowed, then gestured to the side of the glade where they’d stopped to water and rest the horses. There was still snow in the shade of the trees and the ground was sodden and squelched as it was walked over by too many boots, but it was a fair enough place to stop. “Are you of a mind to eat anything?”

“Not really.” He doubted he could keep it down if he did. “I’ll be alright, it’s just the first day. I have plenty of time to get used to travelling again.”

“Alright, I choose to believe you.” He said that, but Zevran didn’t leave with his words. Um, Connor nodded and walked away a bit… uh… yes, Zevran was still behind him.

“He asked you to make sure I’m alright, didn’t he?”

“It is good to know that you remain as observant as ever,” the assassin chirped.

“Honestly, your observations are going to be pretty dull…” Connor admitted, and then sought out what he wanted from the glade: a place dry enough, or at least out of the way and firm enough, for him to sit without being immediately underfoot. The cold ground was a _misery_ down his legs and back, but he could sit, remove some of the elfroot from the belt at his side, and chew the dry leaf hoping to calm his stomach and sooth his aching head.

Once he’d chewed it to a mouth-numbing pulp, Connor swallowed the elfroot with water, closed his mind to the noises around him, and made himself hover again in the between state of awake and asleep. He did not enter the Fade, and he did bring his awareness of his surroundings back strongly enough to listen to the voices around him. He also felt Kindness brush against his throat and Loyalty hum across his cold hands, and he felt a little bit better.

An hour later and back on the road, he realized he should have eaten during the rest. His stomach was angrier now than it had been before, his mind full of cobwebs from the short stint of meditation. He did not ride straight or well, but he had enough muscle memory left in him that his knees could keep Issan from drifting sideways from his clumsy hands, and he did not actually fall from her. When they made camp for the night his dismount was even worse than that afternoon’s, putting him right on his knees next to the old mare. He stayed that way for long enough that Issan herself noticed and clopped her way around to nudge him with her long snout, Connor’s head too thick and dizzy to do more than make his hands remove the horse’s bridle and then just… not… do more.

“You did well, but you’re tired.” Evie’s voice told him, her hands pulling him off the muddy ground, her strength enough to make him stand and keep him that way. “Carver?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. C’mon, you old woman, lets get you brushed down for the night.” Oh good, he was talking to the horse… Connor didn’t know who else it would have been. He staggered when he walked but Evie kept him up and relatively straight. There was a large fire burning and lots of chatter was food was gathered in the fair winter weather. Snow again on the ground, plenty of water and mud besides that, but Connor’s numb hands unfurled his sleeping roll with Evie’s help and he laid himself down on it without hesitation. He fell asleep with the sensation of her running her hands through his hair.

They woke him up so he could eat the hot portion of meat and beans cooked up in the large metal pot someone lugged out. He stayed awake for Jylan to bring him a hot brew of elfroot and ginger for his stomach and headache. The heat helped him but he was shivering. He would get through this if he was allowed to sleep.

Velanna came and looked him over, then said the same thing he’d already been thinking. Bless her. Connor dropped on his roll again and knew no more until dawn. It was, of course, Nathaniel who woke him up with a rough shake.

“Up you get before I make you run the day’s distance instead.”

“I’m ready- I’m coming.” He was not ready but Connor _made_ himself get up. He would get through this. He would survive this. He was going _home_.

The second, third, and fourth days passed much the same way. Each day he worried he wouldn’t make it all the way through, they felt steadily worse than the one before, but he never ended up actually falling from Issan or being relegated into the carriage with his sister. That must have been the reason: if he couldn’t ride home on his own then Connor would have to sit in the carriage with Rowan, and he would not do it.

“How long are you gonna stay mad at her for, exactly?” Carver asked him on the fifth day, and Connor felt miserable with himself as he stared down at his hands knotted tight in Issan’s reigns.

“Until I grow up and stop being such a monster.” He admitted bitterly, disappointed in himself. “She’s just a little girl.”

“You could, y’know, try talking to her.”

“And say what? _‘Sorry for ignoring you the whole time we were in South Reach’_?”

“She’s just lost her parents, remember.” Carver warned him gently.

“I happily serve the man who killed her father, remember.” Connor tried to be just as gentle, but ultimately shook his head and knew he was wrong. “I don’t know, Carver. I really don’t.”

“What would you do if you ever met your younger self?” Carver asked him a strange question that sounded like it belonged in the Fade. “That little boy who did those terrible things?”

“Either punch him in the face for what he did, or tell him it wasn’t his fault.” Connor admitted, and turned a defeated frown on Carver. “Which is the exact conflict I have with Rowan, Carver. I don’t want to be cruel to her, I just don’t trust myself yet not to be.”

“I trust you.” Carver pledged, and it was sweet of him, but- “So does everyone else in this company. You’ve got Kindness for a companion, Connor, can’t you just ask it for some help?” That wasn’t precisely how the relationship worked, but… He’d thought of it, just never actually tried to ask.

He tried to ask that night but was too tired to focus even when he reached the Fade. Kindness was present, yes, but the spirit calmly helped him weave a protective spell to keep him safe from the attentions of anything lurking in the dream realm, locking him into a calm nothingness that let him truly rest.

The next morning Connor tried, without Kindness’ help, to approach Rowan. Oh, how he _did not_ want to talk to her, how he knew he didn’t move as quickly to get about and reach the carriage as he could have to see her before they set out. But he made the attempt, as bad as it was, and deserved the nothing he got for it.

Rowan saw him approaching her for the first time since the Fade, put on a terrified face, and immediately darted into the carriage and shut the door on both Jylan and Kieran. The Commander’s son complained loudly and tried to pull the door open, but when Rowan wouldn’t relent the boy balled his hands up in fists and lost his temper.

“ _Fine_ I was sick of sitting next to you _anyways!_ ” He spat at the door. Although he should have said nothing, Connor could not accept that as fair or proper.

“That’s quite enough, Young Master.” He scolded, and the Commander’s son looked at him with surprise before putting his pouting scowl back on.

“She’s _miserable_ to share the carriage with.” Kieran complained. “I want a horse instead. I know it’s cold out, but this is too much.”

“You’ve both been through a great deal, Young Master, but it’s not right to take that out on Rowan.” Maker, he felt like a hypocrite saying that. “If you must be mad at anyone, let it be me then.”

“Why? You’ve done nothing, Warden.”

“I’m her brother.” He corrected the boy. “Whatever her parents made happen to you, they’re just as much mine as Rowan’s.” Or not, depending on which Arl was actually- ugh, nevermind. “I’m just asking you to please have patience with her.”

“I did and now I’ve run out.” Connor went to say something but ground his teeth instead. This was why Kieran was always getting a cuffing from Nathaniel or Mistress Felsi. Setting Kieran’s bad attitude aside, Connor looked for Jylan instead where the Tranquil was watching the exchange closely. When he realized he was being paid attention to, he approached with a few steps and stopped again, waiting for whatever it was Connor had to say.

“I don’t want to frighten or upset her further,” he explained, and Jylan remained passive and still. “If you could, sometime today, please ask if it’s alright for me to see her tonight or tomorrow morning?”

“You could always consent to ride in the carriage with us.” Jylan suggested and Connor didn’t appreciate it.

“I just said I do _not_ want to frighten or upset her.” He repeated.

“Master Kieran could ride Issan.” Jylan suggested further and Connor didn’t want to offend him by simply walking away but he was not good at _listening_ sometimes. “Providing both of you with more agreeable circumstances.”

“My sister just ran away from me, Jylan, I’m not going to foist myself on her out of nowhere.” He argued again, and then waved his hands trying to dismiss the topic. “Just please, can you speak with her today?”

“I will keep your request in mind.”

“ _Thank you_.” And then Connor returned to Issan and the open, rising road.

It didn’t feel like it got any easier as the first week ended but it must have, because as they began to taper north on the road to Denerim Connor was able to stay awake longer in the evening when they made camp, and get up with less fuss every morning. He still felt sick and weak while riding, still had that constant fear bundled up in his mind that he was going to unexpectedly tumble from Issan’s back and be trampled, but he kept his seat and he did not- well, that was a lie.

He did vomit. Several times, actually. It wasn’t the same as at Caer Blackwood with his body demanding embrium in the only violent, tantruming way it knew how. It was in revolt against the constant motions of riding Issan, the change in diet from hearty foods in the keep to cold hard bread and sharp cheese and watered own ale to keep the river-water from making any of them sick. He was too tired for the taint, and without it’s help burning through the food and steeling his body against the cold, he was sick several times and his only option was to wear through it until he could stand and ride again.

He made himself ride. He rode and even forced himself to be useful: approaching Surana with Nathaniel and putting forth a request to let Nathaniel, Velanna, and An’eth part from the company and journey to Gwaren.

“I’m… not entirely certain why you want to do that, Nathaniel,” Surana stated, sounding more confused than he usually let on. “And Connor? What stake do you have in this?”

“Only a personal interest, sir, the same as the others.” Connor admitted from the swaying saddle next to the Warden Commander. It was raining today, pissing cold misery down on the entire company. The rain spat against Surana’s helmet the same way it drenched Connor’s hood and hair and clothes. “I’m in no condition to go with them.” Surana watched him for a few long seconds, then looked back at Nathaniel with a fresh question.

“Why Gwaren of all places?” He asked. Nathaniel just looked uncomfortable, he even hesitated briefly before speaking. It made sense: Surana was not fond of the Tranquil, and he wasn’t what most would call _sympathetic_ to the plight of other elves.

“Ansera was born in the Alienage there,” Nathaniel finally came out and said. “Velanna and Athras want to see if his family still call it home, and if they are then find out if there’s any point in trying to build a connection.” Surana scoffed outright at the notion.

“I’m doubtful of both counts,” he stated shrewdly, but then looked at Connor again in the rain. “You encouraged this idea?”

“I don’t know what they’ll find or what they expect to come of it all,” he admitted. “I don’t know what sort of person Jylan’s mother was either, he only ever talked about his siblings. But they want to try, and I think he’d appreciate it.”

“He is _Tranquil_.” Surana leaned hard on the word like it was something Connor could just go ahead and forget. Then the Commander relented, sighed like the issue taxed him too heavily to be worth dragging out, and regarded Nathaniel again. “Very well. You’ll want to dismount from the Highway at the next junction. Travel safely and do send word to Amaranthine if you expect to be in Gwaren for more than a few days after arrival. Be careful, Nate.”

“ _Thank you_ , sir.” And with a fist to his breast and Surana’s accepting nod, Nathaniel gave Connor a quick grin and then let his horse fade back through the lines and rain to find his wife and An’eth. Surana still seemed annoyed as they carried on along the grey road.

“Uh,” this was going to be very stupid of him. “Commander… May- may I ask where _your_ family was from?”

“You may not.” Oh- well, no more of that then.

“Yessir.” And Connor made no more mention of it.

The topic of family did not leave him easily however. They were coming closer and closer to Denerim, which meant closer and closer to Vigil’s Keep. Connor took to taking his evening meal with Rowan and Jylan, though it was nearly impossible to actually speak to his sister.

She was a sad and lonely thing now, her nerves over magic snuffed out by what Connor recognized as the grief of losing everything. He’d seen it plenty in Redcliffe amongst the Rebel Mages, and again at Skyhold where so many people had lost so much thanks to the War and the Breach. She mourned her father, missed her mother, wept wanting to know why she wasn’t allowed to stay with her Uncle Teagan, and even cried out once wishing she knew where Lady Morrigan had gone. That last one needled Kieran just the wrong way.

“That’s _my_ mother you’re asking about,” the boy scolded, and Connor was quick to swallow the food in his own mouth. “And she’s in Tevinter, where she ought to have been all along had _your_ family not-”

“That’s quiet enough, Young Master,” Connor interrupted and the boy clenched his teeth in frustration. “Perhaps you should go and see if Master Arainai has anything for you to do.” Just- anything to give the two children a break from each other.

Kieran gave an irritated grunt, stood up from his place by the fire, and stormed off into the shadows. For once, good riddance.

“Where is _my_ mother?” Rowan whimpered quietly, tears swimming in her grey eyes. She had barely eaten anything in her bowl and she spoke her first words to Connor since they’d come out of the Fade. “You know, don’t you?”

“I do not.” He answered her softly, and it was the truth. “I know His Majesty the King was very angry with her before we left Redcliffe Village, but I know no more than that.”

“Is she in Denerim?” She asked him tearfully, “Is that why we’re going there?” Connor didn’t know, and he wasn’t going to lie to her one way or the other. As far as he honestly knew, they were only going to stop in Denerim so Surana could pay a brief courtesy visit to the Landsmeet, and then it would be the last four-day stretch home to Vigil’s Keep. “Connor I want to go _home_ …” And home to her was either Redcliffe or Denerim.

“I’m sorry, sister.”

Rowan cried miserably for the rest of that night, and Connor obeyed Jylan’s suggestion that his presence upset her far more than it calmed her. Jylan claimed that the period where Connor’s attention would have been most helpful to her had likely already passed.

“Perhaps if you had heeded the repeated suggestions to-”

“ _Jylan_.” He warned, and he hoped his friend could understand it. “I’m not asking after her because- because I _want to_ , I’m doing it because I know I _should_ want to. Please, do not try to use guilt with me right now.”

“Very well, but it is not an attempt to inspire guilt.” Jylan told him in his plain and flat voice. “It is the honest statement that you have been negligent towards your sister by barring her from your presence since regaining consciousness in Redcliffe Village.”

“I had excellent reasons not to want her near me,” Connor defended, but he knew Jylan wouldn’t change his position.

“As does Young Master Kieran, but that has not spared him from your judgement.” The Tranquil stated and it _stung_ to hear. “It is hypocritical to expect patience and forgiveness from a child, but not from yourself. Rowan has wronged neither of you.” She’d had Connor _tortured_ but he furled his tongue and would not speak of it. Rowan had not done anything to him _intentionally_ except break promises.

He was cruel, bitter monster and Connor didn’t know who to go to or how to escape that harsh fact.

“I don’t like being this person, _”_ he complained to Evie the next night, head between his knees, feeling dizzy and miserable under another night of heavy rain. “I just want to go home and be _normal_ again…”

Their’s was a small Warden tent pitched over the two of them, and Evie had doffed her armour so she could sleep with a bit more comfort in the narrow space. She reached up for him, tugged on his arm, and brought Connor down to lay next to her in a close, warm, tangle of arms and breaths. They were still damp from the rain and the air around them was cold, but every little bit helped as she curled one leg around his, and his arms found the slope of her waist before twisting behind her.

“You expect more than is fair from yourself,” she murmured to him, and Connor was just thankful for the kiss she pressed to his lips, for the warm way he was able to give her another one just like it moments later. “Family is difficult, especially when children are involved.”

“What about your family?” Connor whispered back to her. He brushed his nose against hers and held her a little tighter, hiding in the dark close to her face. “I don’t think Carver or I ever apologized for what happened in the Fade.”

“Hm? Apologized for what?” she moved her face a little when he nuzzled closer and kissed her cheek, tugging the damp blankets up a bit higher around them.

“For what we saw in your nightmare,” Connor explained, letting out a soft sigh. “You’d never mentioned, at least not to me, that you’d ever been married before. It wasn’t right for that thing to show us something you didn’t want us to know. I’m sorry.” The memory was not terribly clear to him. He remembered snow and wolves and watching Evie suffer to fight over a dead man whose name she’d wept and wept in the desperate moments of the nightmare. It hadn’t been his to see, but they’d needed to get her _out_ of there.

She was very quiet for a few seconds, but too still to be asleep. Connor closed his eyes when she moved to kiss the bridge of his nose, then higher up to find his forehead. Her embrace was warm and she adjusted her arms so it felt closer and more secure around him.

“…His name was Jacques Devonte Poulin,” Evie murmured softly in the dark. “His family owned the quarry which made our town of Sahrnia famous. He was the youngest of three children, with his sister inheriting the quarry and later ruining it when the civil war broke out- but that is neither here nor there. I was a newly commissioned Chevalier sent back to Emprise du Lion where I had originally been from. My family, we always had food and clothing you see, but in Orlais unless you have a title you are nothing. Jacques was never going to inherit much after his two elder siblings, but he was minor nobility, and I was already a captain of the local patrols and guardsmen. So it was a sensible match, the sort of thing which positions the children to rise up higher than their parents in time. I had done the hard part by becoming a Chevalier and earned myself a husband from the lesser nobility. He gained a wife with the credibility to see his children guaranteed a place in the royal academies without question or gossip.”

“So it was arranged?” Connor asked softly in the dark. The idea wasn’t foreign to him, just disappointing. If magic had never entered his life then Connor didn’t doubt his parents would have arranged a wife for him with little if any input from Connor himself. Heirs didn’t get to make choices like that.

“Arranged, but not forced,” Evie agreed, and then he heard her smile and felt the way her lips tugged in the dark. “You would have liked him very much, _chere_. He was a sensible man, very honourable, and kind when he was able to get away with it. Ever respectful and proper in public, but easily delighted by simple things like good music or a fine meal.”

“You sound like you loved him very much,” Connor admired, nuzzling close to her again.

“I respected him,” she amended, and her voice carried sadness. “I would have been honoured to mother his children. But we were complacent, young and arrogant. It was a terrible waste.”

“What was?”

“I was a _Chevalier_ , Connor. No, not a powerful one, being stationed in _Emprise_ of all places, but a good swordswoman nonetheless. We were equals with sword and shield and horse but we decided to travel to his sister’s home like nobles instead of soldiers. We were married not a month before being beset upon by highwaymen, simple _bandits_ of all things and neither of us in our armour or with our swords.”

“Maker, Evie, I’m so sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am, _chere_. It was a shameful thing. Outnumbered but armed we still would not have won, but we would have fought properly. Instead I floundered in the snow like some stupid countess, only a simple dagger of my own and a sword from our dead footman to protect myself with. If Clarel’s Wardens had not been in the area hunting wolves thought tainted with Blight, I would have died next to him in the snow. The worst is, we did not even have gold in the carriage with us: nothing but our wedding rings and whatever the footman had in his pockets.”

“That was how you joined the Grey Wardens?” Connor asked, freeing one of his arms from around her and bringing his hand up to find her face in the dark, cupping her cheek and slowly drawing his fingertips back. He tried to push away some of the cold, to comfort her gently.

“Clarel did not want me until she heard what his family had to say.” She was not weeping, but her voice was rough now and the words did not come easily. “That I had lured their brother into a trap, that I only wanted him for his title and the inheritance they vowed would never reach me. They promised to ruin me in the Chevaliers and bring my career to a halt- a very real threat in Orlais, if a noble family is cross with you. I could not return to my family widowed, dishonoured, and hated by the local nobility. Clarel had seen me fight, knew I was a Chevalier, and took pity on my plight. I survived the Joining, a few years later the civil war broke out, Sahrnia and House Poulin were ruined, and now I am here with you.”

“I wish it could have been different for you,” Connor murmured softly. He looked for her lips and brushed his against them, not kissing her, just trying to be close and comforting. “No one deserves something like that.”

“Hush, my sweet.” She took a rough breath, then smiled and moved to kiss him. It felt warm and nice and sleepy, “Thank you for your kind words, but at least I am here now.”

“Does it bother you when I say I love you?” Connor asked, aware that they should sleep but he needed to know this now. “Like that intrudes on what you had before?”

“Never,” and she kissed him again, short but _so warm_. “I do not throw that word around easily, _mon chere_ , but I know its great value. It warms and pleases me when I hear it on your lips, Connor, and the day I know I can return it as sincerely, I will do so.” She did not love him in such straight and simple terms, but he was important to her, dear to her, and more importantly he could love Evie as deeply as he wanted and not have to fear reprisal from her. That was enough. To Connor, that was enough. He could have Carver’s love and Evie’s care and affection, and both of them accepted the love he gave them in turn. That was- it was more than he’d ever felt worthy of having.

“ _I love you_ …” he whispered in her words, and in their cold and wet tent with the sky still pouring early spring rain down over the canvass, she kissed him again sweetly and good night.

 


	49. Legacy and Legalities

 

They arrived in Denerim almost two weeks after leaving South Reach, and Connor was thankful to the Mercy of the Maker for giving him the chance to sleep in a real _bed_ again. House Surana swelled with people and voices, but the manor had rooms enough to accommodate them with only modest doubling up. Connor fell first into a hot bath, treated himself to hot food, and then dropped into a deep, resting sleep.

He woke up for no real reason later that night to find his bed now included Evie and Carver. A delighted warmth moved quick and charming through him at this good news, and he reached out to Evie for a flurry of light, happy kisses. It woke her up and he apologized for that carelessness, but then leaned over her smiling face and continued.

“Um. Excuse me.” Her smothered laughter and squirming roused Carver, who gave him a sharp poke in the back and then tugged hard on his shirt from behind. “I’m right here. Hello? Are you ignoring me?”

“You don’t want to kiss me, so I’m leaving you alone,” Connor told him playfully, and gave his own muffled laugh when Carver’s strong arm wrapped around his waist and _dragged_ him back from Evie. There wasn’t much space to spare, but she complained about losing him and Connor was held close and warm against Carver’s front. A hand brushed down his thigh and sleepy lips mouthed at his neck- o-oh…

“This energy is a surprise,” Carver purred against his skin, and Connor went very warm in the dark. “Let me see… I know you like it when I kiss you _here,_ so-” Warmth and movement pushed down just behind his ear and Connor felt himself squirm, tangles of sensation threading down his neck and back, making him move because he couldn’t _not_ move when he- _ah-_

“Be nice.” Evie scolded, scooting up close to Connor again and reaching over him to pinch, or poke, or otherwise scold Carver. It made him laugh low and warm against Connor’s head, his arms still around him, hands spread one down his leg and the other across his chest. Evie settled herself close against him, high atop the pillows, and coaxed his face to rest against her bosom with her arms curled gentle and close around him. He closed his eyes and he was warmer than he’d ever been in his life. Her voice hummed against his face when she spoke, and he felt Carver answer against his neck and shoulders. He was so warm, gathered up in strong arms and comforted so close and happily.

They were safe in House Surana with its pristine decorations and meticulously polished fixtures, there were soldiers in every room and the three of them together were still enough of a threat. There was no danger here, he was safe. They were safe. He didn’t have to do what came next.

He felt his mind drifting off and reached through the veil for Loyalty, the spirit answering the chain of marks and symbols he cast down, and the floor under the bed gave a deep green pulse of protective light. It wasn’t necessary and Carver noticed it, Connor reaching around to find his hand and lay his own palm over it, working his fingers between Carver’s to hold close and warm. Acknowledgement and comfort that made Carver settle back down close and warm behind him.

Connor woke up the next morning feeling _normal_. It didn’t last, but _normal_. He woke up and he felt like _himself_ again, shaking Evie awake and kissing Carver’s stubborn brow and cheeks trying to get him up.

“One of you spar with me,” he said.

“Good morning to you too, _chere_ …” Evie stretched the words and her arms up over her head with a lovely little sigh, but then settled languidly on her back.

“Piss off.” Caver moaned into his pillow. Connor’s head had spent the night in the gully between the two cushions, but he was quite alright with that. “Warm bed. Go ‘ _way_ …” Carver pulled the pillow up and then covered his own head with it, stretching under the covers and laying there on his stomach. Not to be dissuaded, Connor simply climbed over the other man and started looking for his boots. “Pity’s sake, Connor- come back to _bed!_ ”

“Later, maybe.” He changed quick as he could into fresh clothes and stomped his feet to make sure his boots fit properly, then left the chamber with his staff. Finding a bit of food and then Chamberlain Shianni were simple matters. After receiving her well-wishes and thanks for his safe return to Denerim, she presented him with his left-behind equipment.

It wasn’t a lot but _Maker_ it was still good for Connor to have _his_ razor and comb back, _his_ soaps and spare clothes. The Wardens had stayed together in House Surana so many months ago and left Connor’s gear behind for that fateful trip through town, but his saddlebags with their Warden crest and familiar wears and patches were his own again. Even the simple bundle of parchment he’d been using in lieu of his more valuable notebook were there, tucked between folded shirts and bundled socks. They were just little pieces of his life he got to hold in his hands again and make feel like _his own_ once more.

The only person in the entire house with the confidence to actually spar with him was Hassick. Nathaniel and Velanna and An’eth were gone to Gwaren. Carver and Evie wouldn’t get out of bed. Surana had departed for Castle Denerim with Zevran far earlier than Connor had willed himself awake, and the Silver Order along with their officer simply repeated over and over again that he should rest and not tax himself and maybe sit down and blah blah _blah blah_. What did they think he’d been doing all winter?

“Just don’t hit me too hard with that thing,” Hassick complained about the staff, the marksman borrowing two blunted long daggers from the house’s training rack. House Surana had guards, but only four of them and they were as hesitant as everyone else to face him. The guards were leery of testing their mettle against a Mage and Grey Warden. The company were leery of giving Connor an outright heart attack if he over-exerted himself. “You know I prefer to shoot things, after-all. No lightning, if it please you!”

“ _Hassick_ ,” Connor told him sweetly _._ “If you can’t knock down a sickly little mage then you’re going to have to reconsider your chosen profession.”

“Okay,” and then Hassick broke the stance he’d just settled into, standing straight and pointing a finger at him. “But consider this. I do knock down the sickly little mage, and then the rest of the Wardens kill me.”

“You have three seconds before I use lightning,” Connor huffed.

“ _Shit!_ ” The threat got the Warden to dash at him and take a swing. He _knew_ Hassick pulled his punches but it was still hard for Connor to move his staff in the way of each strike, nevermind launch his own attacks. “Were you always this slow, Corporal!” That was better.

Make no mistake, Connor did not _win_ a round against Hassick. But he made two attempts at it before Carver appeared and started yelling very loudly about how if Connor dropped dead Hassick would last exactly ten seconds longer in this world. Fight so rudely interrupted, Connor pinched his lips together and then tossed a small crack of white lightning off his fingers. It sparked to Carver’s left and just riled him up further.

“Then _get down here_ and do something about it!” Connor yelled back when he wouldn’t _stop_. “It’s a sunny day with no riding about or feeling sick. If I want to practice, Lieutenant, then I’m going to practice.”

“Not if I kick the shit out of your first!” Carver yelled back at him, and Connor nodded to Hassick before shooing the other Warden out of the roughly defined circle for their matches. Hassick tossed a salute and scurried off to take a seat for this.

“Am I using magic against you?” He asked as Carver stomped into the yard, went looking for a practice sword, and brought the wooden piece back to stand across from him. Connor made sure there was enough space, spinning his staff over his hand as he walked. He still wasn’t as nimble with the weapon as he wanted to be, but it was getting easier.

“See if I care,” was the moody answer. “Your first rest day in two weeks and what do you do?”

“Three, two, one:” Connor threw a second lash of lightning, this time strong enough that it would sting quite badly if it hit. Carver was in the middle of his complaining and barely made it out of the way, taking the wooden blade at a run to get close enough for some kind of counterstrike. Connor pulled his right hand down with light collecting his palm- but then decided against it. He crushed the spell with time to spare, put his hand back on the staff, and with a pivot and both hands holding it steady he made sure the silverite was there to block and hold against the chop of Carver’s sword.

“Don’t go easy on me you _son of a bitch-”_ Okay, fine. Connor picked his foot up and stomped it down, ice surging up blunt and heavy rather than in sharp bristles. The hard barrier succeeded in knocking Carver across his shins and made him dance back, but Connor followed with that same handful of light and a sharp burst of force knocked Carver flat on his backside. Good enough for a spar.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Connor warned, but he was grinning a bit too much to mean it. “I asked if I could use magic and you said _yes_.”

“It’s fucking cheating.” Was the embarrassed retort.

“That’s why they call it _magic_.” Connor helped him stand after that, but he conceded that he was tired now and they could go back inside. He was dizzy from adrenaline and the smarting bruises from Hassick’s fast attacks, so let himself be corralled back upstairs and shoved into the unmade bed. He meant to only lay down for long enough to see his lovers stop worrying, but he felt sick again before long, and agreed by mid-day that he was better off just trying to keep himself from shaking quite so much…

Jylan sat with him, but did not make him feel better despite the elfroot tea. The Tranquil reported to him that Rowan had asked several times to no avail to go home to House Guerrin, but Jylan himself had no authority in the matter and Surana had not ruled on it before departing for court that morning. She was distraught and angry and would not calm down. She was only so far from home and not allowed to see it again. Connor didn’t know what to do about it either, he had _options_ , but no idea which way to go with them.

He sent Hassick to poke about and see if Arl Teagan or Isolde were in residence. By late afternoon Hassick reported back that the house was empty save a skeleton crew of the usual staff. Connor was willing to wait it out and see what Surana had to say on the matter before forcing himself out of bed and onto an errand with his estranged sister. She certainly could not _stay_ at House Guerrin, but if she had belongings there, then…

“Far be it from me to keep you out of your own house.” Connor did _not_ appreciate the Warden Commander’s humour that night during a loud and rowdy dinner in the house’s stone hall. He’d returned that evening with documents signed by the King and officially recognized by the Landsmeet: Eamon’s disownment of him had been annulled, or corrected, or whatever the word for it was. Connor was properly a Guerrin again, sick as the name made him, but he was not Heir to the house. He was now his sister’s legal _guardian_ …

“Does she know that yet?” Connor asked, voice low and mood even worse. He was strong enough to sit at the table next to the Commander, his son Kieran on his other side, and Rowan right again of the boy. Evie and Carver were on Connor’s other side, engrossed in conversation with each other and their meals. Rowan, when he chanced a look at her, was holding her fork in a way which suggested she rather wanted to jam it into Kieran’s arm.

“I think it might be prudent to wait until you and she are on better terms to discuss it,” Surana told him, which was a polite way of Connor being told to talk to his damned sister. “But with Teagan out of the country and likely to lose Redcliffe after the war and dishonouring, what inheritance or wealth either of you stand to gain from your family legacy is no doubt to be found in House Guerrin here in Denerim.”

“I want neither of those things, sir.”

“And your sister? What of her needs?” Connor lost his appetite and closed his eyes slowly, then nodded. “That money is her dowry if she chooses to marry when older. It’s what she can choose to live off of once she finishes her training as a mage. You may be satisfied with your lot as a Grey Warden, but your family’s wealth is still Rowan Guerrin’s _right_.”

“Yes, Commander.” He _was_ right and Connor hated the circumstances more than he could rightly say. “I’ll make the arrangements here in Denerim before we leave for home.”

“Varel can help you get started,” Surana offered, inclining his head to the sleepy old man who was quietly enjoying the boisterous noise of the crowded hall. “He was Seneschal of Vigil’s Keep and served Amaranthine for most of his life. Between his expertise and the knowledge of both Redcliffe and Denerim’s Seneschals, things should come together neatly.”

“Yes, Commander, thank you.” Connor didn’t feel thankful _at all_. He read through the documents that night and found in their pages the final results of what the war had wrought for house Guerrin. His mother had been banished, Teagan’s Banns had abandoned him completely, and Eamon’s claim over the Arling of Denerim had been stripped _weeks_ before the army had finally reached Redcliffe. It was a lot to take in, and it was worse trying to sift through it all and figure out what he could and what he _would not_ tell Rowan.

The next morning, dragging his feet, Connor met with his sister. She seemed to like Jylan second best of the company after Lady Morrigan’s departure, so Connor made sure the Tranquil was not with them. And he explained why:

“If she’s going to be upset, it’s better she just be upset with _me_.” He said, “I’ll open the door for you when the worst is over, so do come in and sit with her when that happens.” Jylan agreed, and stationed himself outside the door to the salon where Rowan was waiting.

He told her most of the truth. That her father Arl Eamon had lost his titles by attacking the Arling of Amaranthine and the Grey Wardens. That their mother had been exiled back to Orlais, and Rowan had been separated from her because she was still Fereldan nobility and Heir to House Guerrin. Her magic required her to either remain in Amaranthine with the Warden Commander to train her, or she go to Nevarra and join the College of Enchanters in Cumberland. The decision of where she ended up, he fibbed, was hers.

Truthfully it was _his_ choice now, but he would let her decide. Travel to Cumberland would be dangerous, travelling in general was a risk no matter who you were. However, Cumberland would also mean having her far enough away from him that they need only ever communicate by letter unless Surana at some point sent him to Cumberland on Warden business.  He could just never deal with her again until she was trained and grown. Connor could get rid of the last piece of Redcliffe still lingering in his life- but that last piece was still a _child_ and that made it a decision he would not take responsibility for. Connor would let Rowan decide her fate.

He did not tell her their mother had been flogged before her exile.

He did not tell her that Teagan was one vote in the Landsmeet from losing Redcliffe Arling for House Guerrin.

He did not tell her that Eamon’s corpse had been brutalized after death when a demon had possessed the body and attacked Lady Morrigan.

He told her as much as he could until she started to cry, because at that point he simply had to _stop._

“I’m sorry, Rowan… Truly I am.” Not for what had happened to House Guerrin, but because of what it left the poor girl with. He knelt in front of her chair and he rubbed her arms, didn’t quiet her sobbing or her tears because by Andraste’s Guiding Light she had been through far too much already. “The next choice is yours alone. And you don’t have to make it right away. King Alistair will wait a few more weeks, I’m certain.”

“I want to go with _mama!_ ” She cried, grey eyes drowning in tears. “I want her to come _home_ to Denerim and we can stay at court!”

“You can’t, Rowan, you can’t…” Maybe Cumberland could send a court mage to Denerim, but only if King Alistair allowed it. “Your mother’s time in Denerim is over, and I don’t know her family or the Mages of Orlais well enough to send you after her.” Maker keep him, Connor would never dare trust that snake with his sister again anyways. “Either you choose to stay in Amaranthine, or you choose to go to Cumberland.”

“What about Uncle _Teagan?_ ” She wept, reaching out and grasping the front of his tunic tightly, shaking him weakly and wailing with her cheeks flushed and tears hot down her face.

“He is disgraced,” Connor murmured, shaking his head at her sadly. “And likely to return to the Free Marches with what remains of his reputation. Rowan, please look at me.” He brushed her hair back from her face and she looked at him, blood-shot grey eyes and colourless cheeks. The winter in South Reach had made her frail from grief. “Amaranthine or Cumberland, you must make your choice soon.”

“Where will you go?” The girl asked him, voice thick and raw from her crying. “I want to know where you’ll be.” Connor steeled himself and with a nod, he told her.

“I will be at Vigil’s Keep, in Amaranthine Arling.”

“Th- The same place as the H-Hero of Ferelden?” She sobbed, and he nodded again. “He scares me, Connor, I don’t like him…” Commander Surana had led the army that destroyed her home and scattered her family. No, Connor didn’t expect her to like him very much. “His son is a _monster_.”

“ _Aye_ ,” Connor tried very hard to master the smile that popped up at that. He winced and nodded and tried to control his face again before looking at her. “Master Kieran is quite the handful, Rowan, but so are you sometimes. Rowan, Commander Surana is an Archmage, a sorcerer of incredible power. He can teach you- he _has_ taught me, incredible things. He- no, I’ll show you. Give me your hand, girl.”

Rowan let him take her hand and lay her palm open over his. With his free hand Connor twisted threads of warm red light through the air, weaving the tiniest stars and forms together into a glyph no greater than the girl’s palm. He reminded her that this was his magic, not hers, and the spell sank into her skin warmly, settling for a moment before with a gentle tug, soft light trailed back up through the air.

The light became concentrated and round, soft and gentle, and then with a finally tug on the magic set in place, that pink glow became _familiar_.

“Kindness?” Rowan uttered, mesmerized by the light that tickled her skin and rubbed against her palm like a small animal. Kindness couldn’t speak like this, it wasn’t properly on this side of the veil, but it was _closer_ now, and very much aware of what Connor was asking of it. The spirit bobbed gently in the air and then nuzzled her hand again, Connor nodding when she quietly asked if she could move her hand. Whatever passed over the glyph he was now holding could contact the spirit, and Kindness seemed delighted by the chance to weave around Rowan’s fingers, and to caress her wrist and arm. Finally, Connor had to change his question around, quite certain he already knew the answer.

“Do you want to come stay in Amaranthine with Kindness and I?” His sister looked away from the muted spirit with her bloodshot eyes and, with a weak sniffle, said yes.

The afternoon that followed was harrowing for him and put Connor to bed in a bad humour that night.  Clerks and Magistrates and Officiates and repeating over and over and over again that he, Connor Guerrin, relinquished his inheritance down to the last copper. He did not want that devil money, and wouldn’t even hear of donating to the Chantry. Once, yes, he would have made that pledge to Andraste’s calling, but not after Redcliffe. His faith had taken a thrashing and frankly he saw nothing of the Maker or His Bride in his deliverance. He saw the Grey Wardens and Archmage Surana’s abilities, nothing more.

He was still picking wax out of his bloodstone ring from sealing so many documents the next morning when he left House Surana. Connor took Rowan and Jylan with him to House Guerrin, with Hassick and Carver for protection. It was not far from House Surana in the royal district of Denerim. Connor had the documents from the Landsmeet and more importantly, a contingent of servants, two extra guardsmen, and a royal clerk, all of whom met them at the gates of House Guerrin and wore King Alistair’s colours.

Together, Connor was allowed to enter the estate with only dirty looks to contend with.

“Lady Rowan!” The Seneschal of Denerim was a brisk, middle-aged human woman Connor did not know, but Rowan did and the woman caught her up in a crushing hug. Connor endeavoured to be patient about all of this just for the sake of not upsetting his sister.

“The matter has already been decided,” he was saying not ten minutes later, when the terrible offense of the Seneschal tried to threaten him. How dare he take his sister to Amaranthine? How dare she try to stop him. “I am here only to enforce His Majesty King Alistair’s decision, and the will of the Fereldan Landsmeet. Lady Guerrin’s personal wealth will be totalled, gathered, and removed from this estate for transport and safekeeping within Castle Denerim until she is deemed old and wise enough to claim it for herself.”

“Preposterous!” The old bat shouted at him. “So they will set _you,_ of all people, up as Regent of Redcliffe! But that-”

“House Guerrin has no remaining landed holdings, Seneschal Carter, I am no Regent.” Connor interrupted her sharply. “The Arling of Denerim was stripped from Eamon Guerrin before his shameful death on the steps of Castle Redcliffe, and the Arling of Redcliffe is no more Rowan’s inheritance than the Princedom of Starkhaven. As for the fate of the Bannorn of Rainesfere, that is for the Freeholders of the Rainesfere to decide once she is of age to consider reclaiming her place in the nobility. As for the here and now, Seneschal, you speak to a Grey Warden of Vigil’s Keep and will mind your tone with me. I am the legal executor of Lady Rowan’s estate as named by the Landsmeet: respect that authority or go throw yourself at the King’s feet, as I have no patience for it. Present the wealth of House Guerrin to her grace, for I am not of the mind or the health to blast down these walls to find it.”

She saw his staff with fresh eyes after that threat, and the scanty household was mustered for the task.

Arlessa Isolde’s jewels were the first things to be brought down from her personal chambers. Strings of pearls, broaches and necklaces of fine jewels and sparkling stones, heavy gold and bronze bangles, woven lace chokers, rings aplenty with every shade of gold and chip of stone one cared to imagine. A lacquered black box with a velvet lining, a breath-taking mask of Orlesian silver studded with soft freshwater pearls…

Connor permitted his sister to take one item from the trove of beautiful treasures, and had the rest crated, marked, sealed, and readied to take to the castle.

Eamon’s collection of fine swords and armour followed. His ceremonial furs, his finely crafted smoking pipes. His own gold and finery from the chains of his Arling to the thick stone daggers with their ornate and lovingly carved hilts. All of it was wrapped and boxed and sealed with the marks of King Alistair Theirin and House Guerrin. Connor wanted nothing of the old man’s, and when Rowan asked him if the thick gold ring with an onyx face would not have made a proper keepsake for him, he bit his tongue to keep from telling her to throw it in the box with the rest. He said no and left it at that.

Connor ensured that the names of every horse, their breeder, and bloodline were included when the offices were taken apart, the records combed through, and the important ones carefully sealed with wax and placed in one of the crates. Connor kept the records of the animals, then asked the clerk from the castle to see the paperwork drawn up to have the animals appraised and sold at the spring market.

“My sister may keep two of the highest-priced mares and one stallion, all three of which will follow her to Vigil’s Keep where I will make arrangements with the stable master. Have them taken to house Surana after the appraisal.” And if Horsemaster Gaveth gave Connor a hard time about it then he could kiss his access to the Apothecary workshop goodbye. Payment for their care and feed would be drawn from the money raised by the sale of the others. It was not the ideal way to have things done, but for a young noblewoman with no lands left to work the animals on the expense of them all would have been outrageous to consider. Redcliffe’s greatest asset was its horseflesh, House Guerrin had had their pick of the field since long before and after the Orlesian Occupation, and Connor sold off all of them but three.

The sale alone would be enough to see Rowan live comfortably from childhood into old age, and probably her grandchildren as well. The furs and books and swords and jewels didn’t even factor in yet. Each animal was worth their weight in gold and Connor got rid of them before angry Banns or the next Arl of Redcliffe could make an understandable claim to the animals.

Next came the Mabari.

“You may choose _one_.” There were seven in the house kennel and Connor was uncertain what to do with the poor creatures. They knew Rowan, perhaps not to the point of imprinting on her, but they certainly knew her as their master’s daughter.

The Kennelmaster rallied against his dislike for Connor coming in and destroying the household and was professional and kind enough to direct Rowan to one heavy-set black hound near the back. She was carrying a litter of puppies, he said, and Connor just had to put up with the fact that Rowan’s _one dog_ was full-up with at least three more. Oh well, his fault for not being specific enough.

The thing was that, unlike horses, you did not _sell_ a mabari. Hell, even giving one _away_ was a feat, but Rowan could not have seven-going-on-ten dogs following her around Vigil’s Keep. He huffed at the problem, then looked at the young lady herself.

“Well, they’re _your dogs_.” Maker Take Him if he was going to leave one behind for Teagan to reclaim.

“Don’t you want one?” Rowan asked him, and she was perfectly sweet about it.

“Not really, no.” He gave an honest answer and he thought Carver was going to faint when he heard it. “I have a hard enough time feeding myself these days.”

“Compounder Ansera?”

“Yes?” Oh, poor Jylan. Connor heard the question in his voice but Rowan did not, she mistook it as enthusiasm.

“Good, can he have the grey one please, Kennelmaster?” Jylan watched Rowan, then looked at Connor, then immediately looked at the Kennelmaster.

“I have been misunderstood-”

“That’s an _elf_ , Lady Rowan, we don’t-” but then the Kennelmaster opened his _fucking mouth_.

“You have been given an order by her grace, Kennelmaster.” Connor broke in loudly, “One I will fully enforce. The grey Mabari for Compounder Ansera, and promptly if it pleases you.”

Of the five other dogs, Connor had one sent to House Bryland, one to the Royal Kennel, and the other three to the largest and most powerful of the Redcliffe Banns with profound apologies and perhaps a few too many back-handed compliments to Rowan’s predecessors. _‘Sorry for our family being so shit at everything_ ’ wasn’t exactly politic, but it was still the general sense Connor wanted sent across to the families that had supported House Guerrin for so many generations only to be betrayed by their incompetence now.

Connor was set to wring _every last silver_ out of the estate for Rowan. Whatever would keep its value as it aged was packed up, whatever would only lose value or not really change was given to clerks to see sold off and the money added to the ledger in Rowan’s name. If Teagan ever showed his face in Denerim again, he’d find nothing but old shirts and a pair of boots with holes in them waiting for him. Ratty tapestries, threadbare rugs, and the squeaky furniture pulled out of storage were all he left behind. There was fine raw coin in the coffers upstairs and Connor had it counted, the household assembled, and dolled out six months’ pay to each person standing there.

Perhaps if he’d started with _that_ then they might not have been quite so hostile towards him all day. Hassick was quite taken with being the one to hand over so many fat coins to so many hard-working people, and seemed pleased as punch when the house larder was broken open and everything from heavy cured hams to bottles of fine Orlesian wine were pulled out and handed off to the staff. The money to be found by selling the house’s stores was too small to pass up the opportunity to give the people who’d just lost their jobs a proper send-off.

They’d be back once a new Arl of Denerim and Arl of Redcliffe were selected and each in need of new households, but House Guerrin itself was finished.

“Hang on a tick…” Carver murmured, looking at one of those bottles right as he’d been about to hand it off to the Kennelmaster. “Hold on- Connor!” Maker, just give the wine away, the weren’t going to get any real money back for it selling three bottles at a time. “No no, look at that crest on the top first. Look familiar?”

“The, uh…” it was covered in _dust._ “Sahrnian mountain?”

“ _Emprise du Lion’s finest_ ,” Carver said in the _worst_ Orlesian accent Connor had ever heard, it was actually painful. “Oh don’t be like that. And you, go pick out something else, this one’s mine.” Carver dismissed the kennelmaster, who was actually pretty amicable about it now because he had a string of sausages over his arm and a sack of dried vegetables across his shoulder. He went off to get a different bottle and Connor turned a look on the other Warden.

“It’s not yours, it’s Rowan’s.” He reminded him.

“Oh, are you going to make me _pay_ for wine from your own sister’s cellar?” Carver whined to him miserably. He had a point. It really wouldn’t be so hard to- “Maker, that’s _cold_. But fine, have it your way.”

“No, it-”

“Oi! Lady Rowan, a moment for a humble Warden.” _Carver._ His sister approached them anyways, her black and heavily pregnant mabari very close because the hound knew two things: everything was changing, and Rowan needed a protector. “Your grace, I would like to purchase this bottle of wine from your collection.” Rowan looked surprised by this, then looked at Connor in confusion, then back to Carver.

“You only have to ask my brother.”

“Yes, and I did, but he’s _mean_ you see.” Don’t be such an ass. Carver reached around his belt and sure enough there was jangle of coin in there.

“Don’t be like this,” Connor complained, and behind his back Carver gave him the finger. “Lieutenant. _”_ That was a gold sovereign in his- “ _Hawke!_ ”

“Much obliged, your grace.” Carver was a complete _arsehole,_ “I think you can give that to the clerk over there to keep it safe like the rest. Thank you, ma’am.” Rowan left feeling no more confident than she’d arrived, and Connor was stuck telling himself not to be as upset as he was.

“Jylan has a mabari, I can get Evie a bottle of wine.” He complained when Carver grinned with his tongue caught between his teeth.

“Well you didn’t, I did, and that means _you_ are sleeping elsewhere tonight.” Connor was going to electrocute him.

“Keep your voice _down_ , will you?” He complained.

When every viable bit of wealth was wrangled from the estate, Carver helped one of the city guardsmen affix a heavy chain and lock around the front doors, and Connor did a final sweep of the building with Rowan. Her clothing and a few modest belongings had been packed up and taken to House Surana, and Connor demonstrated, although he did not allow her to try, the magic to seal the house up.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever come back to live here, but you or I would be the ones to sell it and that means these wards won’t be a problem. They’ll just keep vandals out and away.” He explained this to her as he set the spells across the windows of the first floor, at the doors to the grand study, and at each entrance and exit on the ground floor. For the heavy lock on the front gate, he added an inscription of warning just to make sure any mage hired by Teagan to open up the house knew what they were dealing with. He didn’t make it easy to unlock, but an incorrect attempt to unscramble the spell would uncover the, and-I-quote message of: _‘Beyond these wards you shall find no food, no gold, and no finery. If you serve in the name of Teagan Guerrin, Disgrace of Redcliffe, know this: you serve a rat whose gold is no better than his honour. Give him a kick from his bastard.’_

At least Teagan would have to both find and hire a mage to let him in to his own house. Connor was quite content with that. They returned to House Surana with most of the day gone and found the Warden Commander in good spirits about their departure for Vigil’s Keep tomorrow. Rowan was drained from the day’s activity and it surprised Connor that she remained so firmly fixed at his side, but he was just as exhausted from all the barked orders and marching about getting things done. He retired to the salon near the room he shared with Carver and Evie and just laid in a quiet, content daze by the fire for a bit, dozing carelessly until…

“Connor.”

“ _Hm._ ”

“Connor.”

“ _Nngh,_ Jylan?”

“Connor. Correct this mistake.”

“What?”

“Undo this action.”

Connor cracked his jaw with a yawn, and looked at his friend, who was pointing at… oh, hello there.

“I think he likes you,” Connor yawned again, the grey Mabari pawing around Jylan’s feet, looking up at him, rearing up on its hind legs and placing a fat paw on his hip trying to get attention from him.

“This is inappropriate and unnecessary,” the Tranquil stated, and Connor just watched Jylan ignore the dog that did not want to be ignored by him, so increased its efforts to get his attention. “Return the mabari to House Guerrin.”

“ _That_ would require going and tracking down one of the royal clerks again, in Castle Denerim.”

“Then I shall perform the task, provided I am granted access to the castle.” Oh _right_ , not just anyone could waltz up to the front gate now could they? Bad luck then.

“Jylan, it’s a gift.”

“It is a living creature, an inappropriate subject for gifting.”

“I think you’d like it more if you gave it a name and a bit of attention.”

“A living creature with personal autonomy is not an appropriate gift, and must be returned to the proper caretakers.”

“That would be you now.”

“I do not understand.”

“You understand social etiquette just fine.” Connor slumped in his chair as he explained this _basic_ thing. “Rowan likes you, so she gave you a nice gift. Mabari are _not_ difficult to take care of, and the Kennelmaster at Vigil’s Keep will do most of the hard work anyways.”

“The creature desires emotional stimulation that I am incapable of providing.” Jylan argued and Connor thought of something clever to throw back at him.

“Think of how much Warden Athras will enjoy it if she knows you have a new dog. Your own loveable honour guard.”

“That is an irrelevant point to this discussion. If An’eth desires a mabari then she is the appropriate recipient of this animal and not I.” Connor was shocked, not offended, but- _wow._

“ _That_ was a slip,” he said, sitting up and looking at Jylan with new eyes. “You never call anyone by their first name unless you’re alone with them.”

“Remove the animal from my care.”

“You’re Fereldan, it’s a dog, _and_ a gift: no.” He repeated, “Now what’s going on between you and An’eth?”

Rather than give him a blunt and straightforward answer on the matter, Jylan turned and left the room at a flat walk with his new mabari clopping merrily along behind him.

It was the damnedest thing.

 


	50. The Long Awaited Welcome

 

The four days from Denerim were the longest, slowest period of travel in Connor’s entire life. This was with him riding more comfortably than he had since leaving South Reach, with him on terms with Rowan that were almost _good_ , with his body tolerating the road and mild weather with far more forgiveness than before. The three and a half days of travel from Denerim to Vigil’s Keep lasted _weeks._

He counted every milestone on the rolling green Amaranthine road. The cold wintery rain poured on them to remind them that just because they were in the opening weeks of spring, the foul tempests were not yet spent off the Amaranthine ocean. Most of the fields they passed were still laying fallow from winter and none of the flocks of livestock had any young ewes or signs of sheering to them. The Chantry calendar had declared it spring but Ferelden was reluctant to acknowledge the message. Connor wanted to be home but in the pour weather it felt like every mile took two to actually cross.

Kieran finally got his just desserts for being so foul with Rowan. Their second night out from Denerim, the Warden Commander’s son finally had his hair set on fire by the angry girl. Connor was on it immediately to douse and heal the boy, who honestly was not harmed by the angry flare-up, and Rowan herself was stolen away by Surana for what was either a quiet talk or a fierce scolding. Connor didn’t know which it was until the Commander returned to camp with the girl and sent her to sit with him, Connor trading Kieran off with a quick hand on the boy’s back when his father clearly pegged him with a summoning look.

Rowan sat next to him under the shoddy canopy keeping most of the rain off this side of the fire pit. She rubbed her nose with the back of her sleeve and grumbled to Connor that the Commander had asked her to please hit Kieran with her hand next time and not her magic. Rowan’s black mabari was soft-footed and curled up at the girl’s feet, miserable in the rain but dedicated to keeping the child company.

“He’s the rudest boy I’ve ever met.” She ended her explanation with a sharp defense of her own actions. “If he calls Lakla fat one more time I’ll turn him into a toad.” Connor tried to be a good brother and a good magi role-model, but it was very hard to scold someone when you found their disposition incredibly funny.

It took another impossible day on the road and they made camp for the last time only _fifteen_ _miles_ from Vigil’s Keep. They were in the large junction Connor had passed through a life-time ago with Constable Oghren and Zevran to go looking for Nathaniel in the Wending Wood, and he thought he should die before morning because they were _so close_ and yet here he was sleeping on the wet ground again. They’d seen the fortress’ name on the road marker, the Amaranthine Bear pointing her nose towards the seat of her Arl’s power, and Connor was ready to throw a fit. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be _at home_ right now. Tonight.

“Settle down before I _tie_ you down,” Carver growled at him with a sharp whisper at some impossible hour of the night. They should have ridden through the night. They were so close. If they saddled their horses again right now, then- “Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

“But Carver-”

“Go _the fuck_ to sleep.” Okay. So. What if Connor just got up on _his own_ and-? Nope, that was Evie grabbing him hard by the arm and Carver hissing obscenities at him and _ow_ don’t pull his shoulder like tha-ah, ow, _ow_. No-

“There.” No, get off- _ow_ \- she was still wearing most of her armour-! Carver no- _no_ \- who’d put sharp edges on his wrist guards!? “Stay.” _Ow._

“I hate you both…” They hadn’t doffed their armour as a way to make sure they had less to do tomorrow morning and the company could leave as soon as possible after dawn. Connor was uncomfortably pinned and partially crushed by very many rigid silverite plates. The warriors were even wearing their helmets because they were sick and horrible people, and Carver forgot that part. Carver tried to give him a soft head-butt, and what he got was a painful bump under his hair.

“Oops.”

“Take that shell off, I want to hit you.” There was no part of him that could be elbowed or pinched in retaliation. Connor didn’t want to have to explain to the current company watch why he’d decided to use magic if he shocked Carver instead, so he didn’t.

Not surprisingly, Connor slept very little and very badly. He was ready to re-embrace his faith when the sun finally began to lighten the eastern sky. He saddled Issan fast and efficiently enough that it was almost as if he’d never been ill, and Connor was absolutely maddened by the grinding pace of the company as they _slowly_ began to trail away from the junction and up the very last stretch of road towards home.

Carver and Evie tried to make up for his bruises by talking to him _about_ home, and that was enough to bring him a few more patience.

“The very first thing you’ll do is?”

“Get someone to remove the embrium from my room.” This was somehow not the answer Evie expected, because she did a double-take between him and Carver looking for an explanation. When Carver didn’t seem to know either, Connor saved them? “I had two pots of it growing on the balcony all summer and autumn, but I brought them inside when the weather began to turn. Unless Jylan harvested and removed them from the room before he left for Denerim then they’ll still be there.”

“Why the hell were you growing something like that for the Vigil?” Carver asked him with complete sincerity.

“Because it’s useful in a lot of antidotes and safer than deathroot, which has _death_ in the name and isn’t really what most people want to swallow when all they need is to sleep through some pain.” Connor had administered it himself as the Vigil’s Apothecary. He really hadn’t let himself wonder too much about just how well he’d be able to do that job again if he couldn’t be around one of the key ingredients of his workshop… “Jylan knows it’s there but he’ll be as tired as everyone else when we arrive. I just need a servant or someone to get rid of the plants.”

“And someone to clean up around them,” Evie added. “If they’ve gone untended for over two months shedding petals and leaves all over your room then you can’t sleep there until it’s cleaned up.” He hadn’t thought of that. He should have thought of that.

“Okay, evil death plants aside,” Carver interrupted with a careless hand wave. “Second thing you’ll do?”

“Hope Mistress Felsi’s cooked something with gravy for dinner.” That answer really should not have come that quickly to him but it sprung from his mouth without thinking. Peas and lamb and thick dark gravy. Roasted turnips and parsnips covered in gravy. Hell, just fresh bread and a bowl of the heavy sauce. His two favourite things.

“And if she hasn’t?” Carver teased.

“Be disappointed and cross my fingers for tomorrow.”

“The third thing?”

“A bath.”

“Fourth?”

“Carver,” Evie interrupted, rolling her eyes. “No matter how long you play this game, he isn’t going to say sex.” He-? _What!?_

“You are a horrible woman,” Carver said and then looked straight ahead down the road so Connor couldn’t see his face for the sides of his helmet. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then why is there steam coming out of your helmet like a kettle?”

“Because you’re mean and I don’t like you.” Connor kept himself quiet and out of this because he just wanted the last six miles of this journey to hurry by and get them home so that _no part_ of this discussion needed to be had in front of seventeen other people.

“I _am_ mean but you like me just fine, Lieutenant.”

“I do but that’s besides the point.”

“Hey- um...” Connor cleared his throat loudly and thanks to his position riding between the two, they stopped flirting and looked at him. He nodded ahead as another milestone passed them, the company trotting along slowly because between their numbers and the carriage there was too much to keep track of if they went to a canter. “How much trouble would we be in if the three of us just tore past Surana at a gallop to get home?”

They were very close to the front of the column anyways. There were a pair of Silver Order men-at-arms in front of them, one of whom was carrying the long pole displaying the Warden Commander’s herald. The Silver knights were chatting sleepily about something, and further ahead of them were Surana and Zevran. As if saying his name drew his attention, the Commander chose that moment to shift in his saddle and give a quick look over his shoulder to check his company. There was no judgement and he must not have heard Connor exactly however, because he settled back down and resumed his morning chat with the assassin.

“I wouldn’t say trouble so much as be labelled idiots by everyone else here.” Carver answered. Well Jylan was shut up in the carriage with Kieran and Rowan. Nathaniel, Velanna, and An’eth were still en-route to Gwaren or _may_ have already made the overland trek by now.

“So aside from Hassick,” Evie filled in, “Does that leave anyone else here whose opinion we really care about?”

“Not really.” Aside from Surana’s, _but…_

“At least it’s not the middle of the fucking night again. Oi! _Hassick!_ ” Carver grumbled and then shouted back over his shoulder. It took a little bit for Hassick to weave his way around the carriage and come cantering up to the three of them. The blond marksman was sleepy-eyed, unshaved, and cracked a yawn behind one hand as he pulled up in line with Carver, slurring a simple _“Aye, Lieutenant?”_ as he did so.

Evie was smiling so cheerfully it made Connor’s heart skip a little.

“Get the Commander’s standard and find your horses flanks, will you?” Carver barked at the junior Warden. Carver leaned down and gave Issan’s neck a warning pat, feeling along her flanks with his heels and getting the horse to pick up her knees in an abrupt canter. She lifted her head and opened her chest to the brisk new spring wind, Evie’s horse a step behind with Carver’s. Hassick got his cues confused as his horse complained _‘Walk? Trot? Canter? Make up your damn mind.’_ with a tiresome whinny.

“What’re we doing?” Hassick called, quickly getting himself back in order and riding his horse instead of just being carried along by it. Connor was quickly coming up on the two soldiers ahead of him and clicked his tongue so Issan lengthened her stride again and smoothly wove her way between them. Zevran and Surana took up barely half the road together on a lane made for wagons moving in two directions, and the way was built well and good enough that there was little mud and no great puddles to pose a threat. “Hawke? Where are we-? Yeah, Mevin, _‘Too early for jostling_ ’ I don’t care just give it over and go back to snoozing in your saddle. _Lieutenant?_ ”

“Corporal?” Hawke was grinning under his helmet as Hassick wrestled the standard away from his former militia companion, planting the end of the rod in one of his stirrups to keep it secure.

“We’re going home.” He answered Hassick, who may not have heard him because Connor immediately kicked at Issan’s flanks. The horse made a clean skip over the road and planted her back feet down hard, throwing herself forward and into an immediate _all out gallop_.

Connor overtook Surana in a _flash_ and Zevran threw a loud oath after them before Evie’s horse whistle cut through the air. The wind swirled and blew back at his chest, buffeting his arms and washing clean and cool down his face, but he had a good grip on the reins and enough strength in his legs to ride through Issan’s long strides. He chanced a look back and the wind caught his hair like a comb, Evie’s armoured head low as she carried herself through the air atop her own mount. Carver whooped loudly with a hand in the air, and Hassick may not have understood the preamble but he certainly knew how to keep pace. Surana’s flag teetered dangerously for a few lengths before finally anchoring itself against the wind and creeping up behind them.

They crested the current hill, found the road looping golden through the green countryside, and Connor was _free._

Far behind them, Connor did not hear the following:

“I think your Warden is feeling better.”

“I think one of them just kicked mud in your hair.”

“Alas, my once-perfect visage is now forever tainted by these events.”

“The world weeps for its loss.”

“ _You’re too kind, m’lord_.”

The galloping party sped quick and light down the road, Connor’s staff bouncing in its belted loops holding it to his saddle. Issan was the oldest of the four horses but once she hit her stride the warhorse kept her head up and back straight, the road escaping beneath her hooves like a ribbon spun between the pages of a new book. When Evie’s horse tried to gain on them Issan was the one to decide to go faster, a short noise from the mare’s snout the equine equivalent of _‘I’m leading this charge: back in your place’._

Connor had sold off a hundred horses younger but none better bred and worked than the one championing the road under him. The audacity of what he’d done back in Denerim to House Guerrin’s legacy had him laughing now. When Issan had covered an easy mile, Connor coaxed her back down to a bright canter, the other three falling in behind him with the similar high of windborne whimsy following them.

“You realize we’ll all be in the stocks by lunch for overtaking the Commander like that?” Hassick laughed, the most winded of them and his arm probably hurting from holding the standard straight at such a speed.

“Oh _hush!”_ Carver yelled, waving his hand off in the air. “We’re just out to announce the Arl of Amaranthine’s triumphant and long-awaited return home! No harm in it!”

“Yeah, I’m not buying it.” Too bad for Hassick then, because the deed was done.

“We won’t be in the stocks by lunch,” Connor assured him, pulling his waterskin around and taking a deep draw from the sack, Issan still setting the quick pace for the other three to follow. “Because at the rate the others are going, they won’t by home before _dinner_.”

“Connor, I have never seen you more impatient before.” Evie crooned her words through the brightening day, and Connor was so thankful that the rain had finally let up.

“Who’s ready to run again?” he asked, flashing a smile back at them.

“If you fall off your horse and break your neck at the Vigil’s gates- _hey!_ ” It wasn’t his fault Issan took off again in the middle of Carver’s complaining. The horse gave a stretch of her neck mid-canter, a sign of eagerness Connor was used to, and he just so happened to give a light tap with his heels that made her strike out at the road again like before. She was bred to run, being past her prime didn’t mean that the endurance she was left with was meant to be tested by other horses or their riders, Grey Wardens or not.

He was going home. He was going to reach his home again. The place that had been almost taken from him. The life that had nearly been snatched away. The everything that he’d had to go without all because of a few horrid letters and the actions of unkind people. He was getting it back. Connor was _alive_ and he was going home.

“ _You’re an ass!_ ” He really had not thought that this would happen, but it was.

They crested the final hill and Vigil’s Keep’s black tower was there to spear the blue spring sky. The stones folded down into the great belly of the fortress before spilling out and down with layers of rooftops and chimneys and battlements. Her balconies were strung with freshly beaten spring banners of gold and blue, flags wafting in the chill spring air as the sun failed to burn away all of the mist surrounding the sweeping plazas and courtyard holding the bustling commerce of early morning. The gates were wide open, wagons rumbling slowly in and out.

There was a sweet and overwhelming relief in just stopping on that sun-dappled hill and thinking, _‘I made it_ ’. He stopped and he waited and… and he…

“Welcome home, Connor.” It was a good moment. It was well worth savouring. Even the tears that came with it were sweeter than he could have hoped.

“I really didn’t…” He felt his voice grow rough but it wasn’t his lungs or his illness or those assorted ugly things that caused it. It was just the sight of… the _sound of_ … “I didn’t think I’d make it back again.”

“You did.” Evie told him and her voice was firm, but not forceful with him. “You earned this, Connor.”

“They’ve seen us.” He changed the subject because he heard the low, deep voice of a horn sounding high from one of the fortress’ towers, or perhaps her walls. Vigil’s Keep could see the standard Hassick was holding high over his head with one arm, and that meant they knew their Arl was approaching and it would kick the entire settlement into a flurry of activity now. “Do we wait for Surana to catch up, or go down?”

“Weep about it all you like, Connor, I’m not sitting on this hill until dusk waiting for that carriage.” Carver’s complaint sounded so good to him that Connor had to close his eyes and just tell himself to stay calm and not go to pieces from the relief. He was home. He could see the whole complex laid out and stacked ahead of him. _Home_. “No more galloping this time, mine can’t take it and doesn’t deserve to show up dead on its feet.” Connor swallowed thickly and nodded. No more running.

They walked the horses down the last hill and parts of the Vigil vanished behind her towering walls. The gates were wide open and the traffic of livestock and wagons was calmed by the Silver Order who were there to guard the way. They saluted sharply and Hassick was the one to answer their questions: they’d left the Commander’s party a shy five miles from the gate, so the rest would no doubt arrive within the next hour. This pleased the guards.

“Warden Guerrin.” What?

Connor didn’t say anything, he was too surprised to say anything. He wasn’t wearing Warden armour and hadn’t been the one addressing anyone. But he heard his name and looked around like a lost child until he realized the soldiers at the gate had come to sharp attention and saluted him with fist to heart.

“Welcome home, sir.” What-? _What?_ How did they even recognize him? What did it even matter?

“Thank you?” Uh, why? Why had they done that?

The ride through the fortress’s market was not quite as strange, but there was still something different that Connor couldn’t put his finger on for the first several minutes. The morning market was as active and noisy as it was meant to be, but the number of people who looked at the four of them, returned to their tasks, and then immediately shot up again to stare or wave or to throw up a cheer was _different._ Grey Wardens were respected, but aside from the standard there shouldn’t have been anything to distinguish Carver, Evie, and Hassick from any other small Grey Warden patrol, and _those_ were common as clouds around the Vigil.

The most telling of these reactions should have been when an old elven woman followed the pattern of looking, dismissing, and then shooting back to attention over their passage. Connor hardly noticed her in her long black dress and grey shawl, a woven straw hat tied to her head with a simple white ribbon, but-

“ _Hamae?_ Grandma wait!” –but that same old woman immediately turned from her business of bartering for dinner vegetables and hustled after the four horses. She was not fast and that was why Connor didn’t really know it was happening, but she was persistent in her following.

They reached the final gate and the courtyard with its sparring rings and outbuildings and clanging smithy. The Vigil extended her wide arms around and open to swallow them up, and once the four of them were inside the noise of the place was different.

For starters, there were _dozens_ of Grey Wardens. Company after company of men and women and elves and dwarves and humans and Fereldans and others working the horses by the stables, testing their mettle in the ring, joking loudly and working hard as they shifted supplies about the complex. A castle this size took an army to maintain it and that army was hard at it in a way Connor wasn’t used to, but immediately liked. That old, musty tension between the Silver Order and the Grey Wardens was gone. What militiamen Connor did see, and there were still a good number, seemed prouder and more comfortable about their rank and purpose. The Grey Wardens were no longer a small and elusive handful of adventurers, they were the main denizens of the keep.

“An hour, huh?” Warden Sigrun was there to greet them, arms open and a loud whoop cutting the air as the four of them reached the courtyard and dismounted in the dizzying activity of the courtyard. Carver gave the timing, and the small dwarven woman rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Plenty of time then to _get this Duster’s hovel looking right an’ proper for the Arl of Amaranthine! Wardens! Get this place straightened up!_ ”

Her mustering cry was plenty to shake up a loud bellow from the men and women scattered about the yard. Immediately the spars came to an end, the horses were returned to the stables, and there were available hands to cart off crates, rake the gravel and sand of the courtyard, and get the place picked up again properly for Surana’s return. Connor envied them for their energy, he wanted to join the-

 _“Warden Guerrin!_ ” But he was startled from his place between Evie and Hassick, and Sigrun was interrupted from trying to say something to him when Connor turned around looking for the voice. What he saw was an old elven woman in that black dress and shawl, her hat knocked back and hanging from its’ ribbon around her neck, and she had one hand raised to get his attention. A much younger woman was following behind with a basket hanging from her arm. She had twisted black hair wrapped behind her head in a knot, her clothes hardy and good boots and wearing britches of linen and hide. She came with a longer stride and called out for her grandmother to _‘Come back!’_ and _“_ We can’t just go into the keep! _Hamae!”_

Mistress Valora, Vigil’s Keep’s midwife, ignored her granddaughter Vessa and Connor just gave himself a shake when it took him this long to recognize the person calling his name. He’d never seen the old woman look so distressed before, she usually just came to him with a list of demands and a sharp click of her tongue if Connor took too long or wasn’t able to meet her expectations with something. Why she would come chasing his horse through the keep and march across the courtyard now when he was filthy from the road and more exhausted than she knew didn’t make any-

“Maker Preserve Us!” She cried, and with a quick swat to get Hassick out of her way Connor was swiftly and tightly embraced by her. Connor was shocked. Stiff. Confused. He looked over Valora’s head at Vessa but all he got from her was an embarrassed look away, the young tracker just grumbling _‘Hamae,_ ’ under her breath again. When Valora released him it was with her thin hands groping his sleeves, her wide brown eyes blinking repeatedly and with a misted look that made a sudden concern bloom in his sore chest. Why was she-?

“But where did they leave the rest of you?” The midwife was distressed and Connor let her pull his glove off, her sharp fingers clutching his wrist and then uncurling his fingers. She pressed her thumb into his palm and then flipped his hand to look at his nails. Whatever she saw didn’t just displease her, she was _worried_. “Maker’s Mercy, they’ve left you nothing but sinew and bone. What was it they did to you?” So many things, so very many things…

“Embrium, mainly. Far too much of it.” Connor answered only the part he cared to right now, his voice as gentle as he could make it as he explained it. “But Jylan has been taking care of me, Mistress Valora, and I’m much better thanks to his efforts.” She nodded eagerly at this, but the crippling worry was still there.

“Good.” She praised, an unexpected thing. “Odd as he is that boy still has a good head on his shoulders. It was good of the Arl to take him and…” Valora’s voice ran out, words fading suddenly to nothing. She released his hand and her granddaughter stepped up to put an arm around her shoulders, finally murmuring a soft _‘It’s good to see you home again, Warden.’_ to him. Valora was well aware of the Wardens standing around watching this exchange, of the flurry of activity that had overtaken the courtyard, and she was now very uncomfortable with it. The midwife swallowed hard, then straightened herself out in a stubborn way that seemed far more like her.

“You are- filthy, and tired, and no doubt need your rest.” She announced at him, her voice almost brisk enough to make him believe she was back to normal. “The workshop can wait as long as it needs to, but you will come to my hutch tonight for supper. And if you are too ill for that then tomorrow instead. You will come by, or I will send Vessa to smoke you out.”

“ _Hamae!_ ” Vessa hissed at her grandmother’s long ear and received only a dismissive huff for an answer.

“I-” He knew where they lived, he’d been there countless times to make deliveries. “Thank you, Mistress Valora. If not tonight then tomorrow, yes.” It was still morning. If he bathed and rested then by tonight there was a chance he would be alright to leave his room. Maybe.

The welcomes picked up pace and number after Valora and her granddaughter left. Connor was greeted properly by Sigrun, who rammed herself into his gut but didn’t squeeze as hard as he knew she could. Constable Oghren was waiting for them inside, socked Connor very hard in the hip with one fist, and demanded they drink together because Connor looked far better than he had in Redcliffe Village and that was good enough for the senior Warden.

Seneschal Garevel was all a-flutter at the sight of him, welcomed him home, asked if he needed a seat or if he was well enough to carry himself to his room. When Connor finally remembered the embrium again and told the Seneschal he needed someone to remove it, Garevel went _himself_ and found the offensive pots with Connor’s bashful instructions given from the doorway. Surana had sent a messenger forward from Denerim when they’d made the decision to remain in the city for those three and a half days, so the Vigil had known when to expect them and Connor’s room and long with everyone else’s had been cleaned already. This meant fresh sheets, swept floors, aired and dusted chambers, and most of his neglected and now-dead plants tossed out.

“In hindsight, perhaps not the most appropriate choice,” Garevel admitted when Connor stared at a loss at the place where his hardy little arbour blessing vine had mysteriously vanished, leaving only it’s lonely little hook twisted into the side of his bookcase. His snowdrops had never in fact sprouted, but the servants had assumed they were just pots of dirt and left them be.

“It’s hardly a matter of concern now, Seneschal. If I grew it once, I can grow it again.” Connor didn’t bother checking the other plants out on the balcony or too many of the pots hanging about from the ceiling and walls, he was just tired. He stank of the road but was standing in the middle of his room for the first time in months, unable to just throw himself completely over his _own_ bed because Garevel was still here and, again, Connor had been sleeping on the ground for three nights.

“Baths will be drawn-” The Seneschal was literally mid-sentence when a deep horn sounded somewhere far through the keep, causing him to go straight and stiff and lose his train of thought completely. “Ah! His Grace has finally arrived, yes, I will see to your needs as _soon_ as-”

“Thank you, Seneschal.” Garevel probably heard him, but the Seneschal was a busy man with a million things to keep track of at a time and left in an abrupt hurry.

Connor was _home_. He stood there, in his room, and just tried to take it all in as carefully and thoroughly as he was able.

He’d come through the Vigil’s gates, across her courtyard, into her great hall with her burning fires and hanging braziers, Surana’s throne standing proud and high at the back of the chamber. He’d come upstairs, wound his way through the castle in Garevel’s wake, and the Seneschal had opened his room for him. Connor’s own key was still safely tucked under his shirt, next to his oath pendant.

The beams across his room’s ceiling still had their nails and hooks pushed into the hard wood. Twine threads were dangling a few bundles of dried herbs and numerous clay pots holding a few spindles of green and brown stems. Most of what had been growing when he left would recover with a bit of water and fresh air, the others would need to be broken down for anything useful or simply thrown in the compost and started anew. His floor had a host of larger pots and planters littered about against the wall near his crowded desk, a noticeable gap in the clutter now where the embrium had once harmlessly stood.

His bed was covered in a thick blue quilt meant for the winter weather that had only just been creeping up on them when he’d left for Denerim. The pillows had been beaten and the sheets aired when the weather had allowed it yesterday, and in his standing closet and its lower drawers Connor found his folded and neatly stowed clothing. Things that were his. That belonged to him.

He set his staff in the corner near the closet, quietly captivated by the simple act. This was where his staff _always_ went, this was normal. His saddlebag had not yet been delivered but there was nothing in it he needed at present.

Connor removed the borrowed and road-stained jerkin, leaving it out for the servants to sweep away and tend to for him. He took clean clothes over his arm, felt strange and light-headed as he went through the mundane action, and left his room.

“Connor?” He got as far as his own doorway when he heard Evie’s voice softly next to him. He looked and she was standing in the hall next to his door with all the appearance of having waited for him. She’d removed her armour but was still wearing the same trousers and soft undertunic from the road, only her face and hands clean meaning she’d not yet bathed. That was good, he hadn’t either.

She looked at him quietly for a few moments and then opened her arms. Connor went to her immediately, thankful to hide in her embrace for a few moments, his breaths slow but shallow as he tried to stay _calm_.

“I’m home…” he murmured to her. Connor felt her kiss his hair and then hold him tightly. He stayed there until he felt calm again, calm enough to be alone and to walk and take care of himself.

“Be easy on yourself today, my dear.” She told him kindly, kissing his forehead and then letting him search quickly for her lips.

“I’ll try,” he pledged, and then carefully made his way down through the keep to find the chamber near the kitchens where the cooking fires heated the water for the Vigil’s every need, including keeping its occupants clean. He bathed slowly. Stool, bucket and warm water with familiar soap to lather through his hair and help get the grime and sweat of travel off his skin. There was enough privacy for several people to use the chamber at the same time without having to look at each other, and Connor was thankful for it.

His chest and arms bore scars from what had happened to him. In his sorry state his magic had been enough to seal the wounds and stop the pain of them, but he’d realized as early as South Reach that he’d not done a thorough job while in the Talon’s clutches. The muscles under the skin were unharmed, but his shoulder was lined with faded white marks from knife blades, his calves bearing the shining marks from the rashvine blisters. There were unpleasant flaws in his skin all down his front and even woven around his forearms, but until he could look at them calmly he just ignored them and rinsed his scarred body off, toweling away the warm water before changing into fresh clothes.

His body felt better for the heat after the abuse of Issan’s saddle and his own reckless choice to make her gallop home. Hunger nagged at him but sleep was more persistent. His bed, in his room, with his plants, in his home. Yes, that sounded far better then… than… Mistress Felsi?

“Um…” He didn’t get a chance, hair still wet, to ask what Oghren’s wife and the Vigil’s head cook was doing in his room, but Connor had left the door open and something smelled wonderful in here.

“Welcome home, Warden.” She told him in a brisk voice. “The whole keep is in a flurry so no one will miss you for another day more. I expect these dishes picked clean when they’re brought back to the kitchen, understood?” Connor could only nod dumbly at the command, staring at the covered platter left on his desk as Mistress Felsi left in her usual hard-paced manner.

He should probably go and find Evie, and where had Carver gone off to? Sharing a meal seemed more pleasant than-

No, this was ram shoulder roasted on the bone with the fat rendered and glistening over the grey flank, rosemary sprigs and ground mint singing in the hot bath over a bed of salted turnips. Connor’s mouth flooded and his hand immediately went for one of the oven-warm rolls of soft bread. The first bite of fresh butter and gravy was in his mouth before his ass found the desk chair. He was not sharing this. He loved them both very dearly, but Connor absolutely was _not_ sharing this meal.

The peas hidden under the meat were not fresh but they were rolled in more of the fat and butter that he sopped up with the bread, the blackened tips of the turnips tough and crunchy in his mouth as he feasted. Connor had eaten well at House Surana and not suffered as greatly these last few days as he had immediately after leaving South Reach, but _this_ was the meal he’d been waiting for. He didn’t even notice the small flagon of watered down cider until his tongue began stinging from the salt. He swallowed the sweet pear in fast gulps before going for more of the food, working his way down to the point where he was using his greasy fingers to scrape and pluck the last bits of meat from the succulent bone, and then he nearly started gnawing on that too.

He used the crust from the last of the bread to scoop out the gravy, fulfilling that road-side whimsy about having his two favourite things together with no further accompaniment. The soft crumb from the same roll was used to wipe down the plate and clear the last of its oils and juices: clean as demanded by the quartermaster.

“There you are,” Carver’s voice arrived only after Connor had completely gorged himself. He had just enough strength and self-control to lumber himself over to the basin and pitcher in his room to wash his hands and face after the rich meal, and that was how Carver found him. There was still a bit more of the weak cider left in the pitcher, but Connor was too full to consider it. “And there you _go_. At least lay down before you fall asleep, will you?”

“Mm,” that was about as much as Connor could say. His knee sank into the bed, his face found the cloudy softness of his pillow, and he groped blindly in Carver’s direction across the quilt to beckon him over. His eyes were already shut, his entire body humming with thanks. “ _Nngh…_ ”

“Sorry, I don’t speak _hibernating bear_.” Carver joked over him and that was okay. Jokes were good. Joke more. Come closer. _Kiss_. “You’re _really_ stuck on that, aren’t you?”

Connor made the sign again. _Kiss_. His bed shifted and leaned a little before Carver’s weight settled, his warmth cuddling close and his hand courteously moving Connor’s arm out of the way so there was space. Connor’s arm was dropped around his lover’s waist, Carver laid a hand on him in turn, and the great oaf did not kiss him. Not properly, anyways, kisses on his brow didn’t count.

“Surana’s gonna give you shit for rushing ahead like we did.”

“ _Nng._ ”

“Shouldn’t you see your sister settled?”

“ _Mnn._..”

“At least you ate. Jylan’ll be pleased with that.”

“ _Hmn_ …”

“I’m just gonna keep talking and keeping you awake, how’s that for fun?” That was fine as long as Carver knew what exactly he was getting into. This was Connor’s bed, in Connor’s room, in Connor’s home, with Connor’s lover.

He mustered the strength to squirm forward into Carver’s warmth, shuffled down a little and found the edge of Carver’s jaw with his face, and then searched against his throat for the freshly shaved skin lightly scented with mint. There was effort involved in holding his head up so he could mouth gentle and persistent against Carver’s throat, but it made him tense up so splendidly and made Carver’s gloating words crumble.

“ _Either kiss me, Carver Hawke,”_ Connor murmured against the warm, tender skin under his jaw. “ _Or quit interrupting my nap._ ”

“Nighty-night, _go to sleep_.” Carver told him in an embarrassed rush, and Connor smiled again with a soft touch to his love’s throat before settling back down warm and close in his arms. “I’m just glad you’re home…” Connor let out a slow, steady breath, eyes too heavy to keep open and his warm insides telling him to quit fighting and give his body rest already.

“ _Me too…”_ And then he just… drifted off.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone confused: I uploaded chapters 46-50 all within a few minutes of each other. Spacing updates doesn't really have much impact on this site, so I posted as much as was ready to go live.
> 
> Disgrace of Redcliffe is officially 1 prologue, 51 chapters, and 1 epilogue long!


	51. The Hero's Debt

 

Connor broke bread with the midwife and her family on his first evening back in the Vigil. Valora let him eat in peace but as soon as the last mouthful was taken, she embarrassed her granddaughter all over again by jumping directly to matters of Connor’s health. The old elven woman was quickly caught up in an anger that Connor understood but had struggled to feel in Redcliffe: that a herb meant for bringing rest and relief to the ill had been so blatantly abused by the Crows, and to the point of nearly killing him. There wasn’t a single question about how soon he would be back to full health or how he felt about the matter in general, Valora assumed everything and she was right on all counts. It would be many more months, and he was still angry.

He was quite touched by Mistress Valora’s concern for him and had to be convinced to accept a very expensive bundle of cinnamon sticks and dried orange rinds. She told him to have Jylan add them to his medicines to improve the flavour, and would not hear a word against her decision to give the delicacies away.

When Connor found Jylan later that evening and showed the bundle to him, the Tranquil was even less enthused than Connor himself. Thankfully, his Mabari had been handed over to the capable care of the Vigil’s Kennelmaster shortly upon his return home that morning so Connor didn’t have to deal with Jylan’s continued ire over the dog right now.

“I still maintain my acquisition privileges through the Formari Guildsman and have made multiple requests on behalf of the Vigil since arriving at my position here.” He spoke with the same blank, even voice he always did, but it was offset this time by the fact that Connor had gone looking for him and thus found him with his hair still dripping gently, the blue-black locks flying wherever they pleased around his long ears. “I will put forth a request for the spices to replace what the midwife gave you. It is unnecessary for her to offer something which is a great personal luxury when Vigil’s Keep can acquire the same materials.”

“I tried to refuse them but didn’t want to offend her,” Connor explained, “Thank you, Jylan.”

“Seneschal Garevel has requested that you rest yourself over the next week before resuming any tasks associated with the workshop.” Jylan told him the news and Connor tried not to groan when he let out a tired breath. “However, there are many tasks both skilled and mundane which require minimal physical stress.” That allowance surprised him.

“That’s very considerate of you,” he marvelled and then realized just how rude that reaction was and tried to amend it. “Thank you again then, I’ll be glad to have something to do.”

“It is unlikely that you will be able to assume any tasks tomorrow, but there will be fewer obligations for you to fulfill in the coming days.” Oh, Jylan. Why did he always have to be confusing like this?

“Obligations?” Connor repeated. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“No.” No, meaning he didn’t know something or he knew something but thought Connor already knew it too? _Tranquil!_

“I’m confused. What business do I have tomorrow?” Jylan watched him for a few quiet moments, then proceeded with his answer.

“You are a war hero responsible for saving the lives of the Ferelden Grey Wardens and all senior members of the Silver Order of Amaranthine.” He- _what!?_ “As this matter has not been publicly addressed by the Warden Commander, it is reasonable to assume he will take such steps tomorrow.”

“But I’m not a-”

“Connor.” Jylan interrupted him with just his name, and waited until Connor was completely silent. “This matter is not open for debate.”

“But-”

“No. Good night.”

Jylan shut the door on him after that, not because he was mad at Connor, but because he was tired and he’d said the conversation was over and the best way to end it was to physically shut Connor away from him. Rude but effective, Connor slunk back upstairs and this time he was keenly aware of every _“Warden Guerrin”_ and _“Corporal,”_ and “ _Welcome home, sir._ ” sent his way. He was nodded to, saluted, caused several people to stop and stare, and when he _finally_ made it back to his floor with its open balcony looking down into the Warden mess hall, both Evie’s and Carver’s doors were shut. This was almost important enough for him to start knocking, but he held off.

He went back down the hall to Sigrun’s open room and was admitted inside with a chipper welcome and a quick salute. Taking the seat she offered, he asked his question and Sigrun burst out laughing.

“Are you _crazy?_ ” She snorted- actually she kept snorting, her laughter was littered with the giggling sound. “Guerrin, you fell out of the _sodding sky_ and tore the Archdemon’s wings off! Dude! It was incredible!”

“You weren’t even there-” Connor gasped, horrified. “You weren’t in the Fade.”

“ _No_ , but I was on the road with fifty men and women who _were_ and they all saw it!” No no no- well, yes, he’d certainly chosen to dive down through the Fade rather than reappear in the very depths of the Nightmare’s domain, _but-_ “ _Boom!_ The whole castle blew up with lightning! And when it tried to eat you, you made it explode from the inside and killed it!”

“Hawke killed it,” his voice was faint and weak, this wasn’t- “I hurt it, I didn’t-”

“Yeah well convince the Vigil of that.” She used a smug voice and folded her short arms, still preening brightly. “They’ve had _all_ winter to talk up what happened, from the demons to the nightmares to you _singlehandedly_ getting the Redcliffe militia to get up and charge with you!”

“I… I did do that…” Connor got the words out in a weak croak, still shocked. “I still think war hero is a bit much though, the Commander did _far_ more than I.”

“Because he’s the _Hero of Ferelden,_ remember?” Sigrun scolded, sticking her tattooed bottom lip out at him, fists on her hips. “No one’s saying you upstaged anybody, they’re saying- _ugh_ , okay, why don’t we just stop using the word _‘Hero_ ’? Will that help?”

“Probably.” He still felt weak and overwhelmed. Sigrun dragged her chair closer across the bright orange rug spread over the floor in her room, straddled the seat so she was on it backwards, and then reached up and grabbed Connor’s scarred face firmly.

“You’re not a hero, Guerrin. You’re a _good Warden_.” She said it slowly and made the words hard. “You were the last person who _had_ to do anything during the battle, but you went above and beyond for the Order anyways. You served with distinction that saved lives and kept your brothers-in-arms fighting when they should have been hopeless. You made allies of our enemies and you took a fatal blow from the Archdemon that sent _everyone_ into the final push to kill it properly. You did _good_ , Connor. Vigil’s Keep won’t tolerate having everything you did just swept aside without comment, how would that look?”

Connor had to think about that for a moment. Actually consider it from the perspective of everyone else. It was hard to argue with himself and say what he’d done hadn’t been… incredibly reckless and stupid and… _maybe_ incredible. He’d thought he was going to die so he’d just done everything he could think of before it happened.

“It would look like Surana is ignoring me.”

“And that would go over about as well as a barrel full of bees in the mess hall.” Please don’t release any bees in the mess hall, Sigrun…

Connor went to his bed for his first proper night at home. While he was comfortable and safe and back where he belonged, his mind still wouldn’t settle for sleep right away. He’d napped comfortably with Carver earlier, and he and Evie had still had their doors shut when Connor retired to bed, but he stayed awake.

Connor remembered a talk with Surana, a lifetime ago, where the Commander had walked Connor through an explanation of loyalty and showing favour. Connor had earned his Joining not by convincing Surana to give him the chalice, but by garnering the support of his company of Wardens. If the Commander had denied him a place among the Grey Wardens then his men would have felt cheated. If the Arl ignored the mage who had gone as far as he could with what little he’d had to begin with during the battle of Redcliffe, then his army would cry out in protest.

He would go through with whatever tomorrow brought because Surana really didn’t have much choice in the matter. Somehow, that thought allowed Connor to close his eyes and find sleep.

The next morning at first bell he was summoned to see Garevel. The Seneschal sat down with him at his wide desk with it’s warm fire burning nearby, his ledger book open and turned around so Connor could read the numbers clearly.

“This is your monthly stipend,” Garevel explained, the back end of his pen resting over the little box with its neatly inked numbers. “In addition: your hazard pay for extended deployment, which is then multiplied by four to equal the number of months you were kept away from the Vigil. Here, this number is for your injuries.”

“Is… is that silvers or- _?_ ”

“Sovereigns, certainly.”

“I don’t understand.” It was a very large number.

“It’s a practice common among the Grey Wardens of the Free Marches and one the Warden Commander of Ferelden has adopted in recent years.” Garevel explained, and he was much calmer and softer-spoken than Connor was used to. He folded his hands together neatly over his ledger and looked at Connor very seriously. “A swordsman who loses an arm or a horseman with only one leg can hardly expect to continue their profession. Within the Grey Wardens there are certainly other ways to earn ones keep, your services as Apothecary being a prime example, but in the Free Marches and now in Ferelden it is understood that sometimes the injured simply cannot return to their obligations. This money, a significant quantity as you can see, is only intended to ensure you do not spend the rest of your life living hand-to-mouth, Corporal. Even if you return to active service, this money is yours to do with what you will. You’ve always been a very rational, forward-thinking young man and I doubt you will let this boon go to waste.”

“I…” It was a lot of money. Connor’s body was whole, scarred yes, but certainly whole, he didn’t know if he understood this completely. “I do intend to return to service.”

“Excellent, then this money will serve as an investment in your future.” The Seneschal was very pleased as he turned his book around, gave his pen nib a quick lick, and then _a-ha_ ’d and marked something else down. “Before I forget, you are also now entitled to a modest bonus on account of your sister Rowan Guerrin’s residence in Vigil’s Keep. Something to keep the girl in proper clothes and supplied for her schooling.” Rowan had more gold than Connor could count waiting for her in Denerim, but he didn’t know how to make his mouth work and couldn’t see how it was relevant anyways. It wasn’t a twelve-year-old girl’s duty to take care of herself, so shame on him for nearly suggesting it.

“I’m not even sure I know what to do with the hazard pay, Seneschal, nevermind…” He’d handled quantities and values which far exceeded this amount in Denerim on Rowan’s behalf, but now it was _his_ money and it was bizarre to him. “I’ve no needs that a sum like this is necessary for.”

“The wonderful thing about having too much money at a time, Corporal,” Garevel told him cheerfully, “Is that you don’t have to worry about suddenly running out of it. Whatever you or the Maker decide for yourself now, as long as you are responsible then you will live a comfortable life.”

“I… Thank you, Seneschal.” He could patron a workshop with this money. The thought left him weak-kneed and wobbling as he left the office, head swimming with numbers.

He could patron anything. Honestly anything: artisans or clerks or crafters or any other guild. He could go to Amaranthine and pour money into the Formari or the Herbalists to patron them and ensure they were looked after locally, building a reputation for himself from that. This was enough money to buy land- not a _lot_ , just a little homestead somewhere in Amaranthine if he chose to. He didn’t know what he’d do with a house if he wanted to stay in the Order so he knew he wouldn’t do it- but he _could_ , and that was an incredible power he’d never dreamed of.

He could have claimed and taken the same sum twice over from the house in Denerim but that money was _House Guerrin’s_ and belonged exclusively to Connor’s _sister_ now. It hadn’t occurred to him to take the gold from his disgraced family because he hadn’t wanted it, didn’t need it. Now he had his own wealth and it was small but it was wealth and it was _his_. Now when Connor said he _wanted_ to be a Grey Warden again properly, there would be no reason to doubt him. He did not have to return to the Order to keep himself paid and looked after, he could return because that was what he desired.

He wanted to find Evie, or Carver, or Jylan, or Sigrun, but what he found instead was a servant who saluted him excitedly and then announced that he was being summoned to the Warden Commander’s office. Still dizzy from his meeting with Garevel, Connor managed to pick up his feet and follow the girl through the castle and up to his destination.

Surana’s apartment doors were open. Those thick wooden double-doors were carved over with the Amaranthine Bear and Warden Griffon, and it felt like both emblems watched Connor pass by them and into the salon that usually hosted the Commander’s son and mistress.

Lady Morrigan was not in residence at present, and Kieran was not in the room either, but Rowan, the Commander, Zevran, and two people Connor didn’t immediately recognize were waiting inside.

“Brother-” Rowan saw and addressed him first, giving the servant no chance to announce him properly from the door. Connor’s sister was wearing one of her dresses from Denerim: burgundy fabric with a white chest and sleeves, little roses knotted around her straight waist. Her dark hair had been combed and braided neatly behind her head, and she stood up from her place on one of the salon’s couches when she recognized him. He thought she might try to approach him, but Rowan was a noble daughter: she knew speaking first was wrong and looked miserable and sadly at her feet in case Surana would scold her for it. He didn’t.

“Warden Guerrin,” Commander Surana gave him both a smile and a nod, inclining his head a second time for the servant who bowed herself out of the room and shut the doors as she left. “You look well for a good night’s rest. Come forward, if you please.” Connor did so, and although he still didn’t recognize the two men he was able to see the Tranquil brand seared into both of their foreheads. He understood the vacant expressions both wore when he approached.

“Warden, I’m not sure if you’re acquainted with Formari Guildmaster Owain of Amaranthine.” Surana explained smoothly. The Archmage was wearing his fine red robe today and gestured with both of his magic-scarred hands, one nearly touching Connor’s shoulder before the other indicated the taller of the two Formari. Connor _had_ met Owain once before, months earlier when he’d offered to take Jylan from the Guildsmen and bring him to Vigil’s Keep. The sad-eyed Tranquil had lost most of his hair and wore a thick gold chain around his neck and shoulders, a heavy medallion of finely polished silverite marking him a Guildmaster. His dark blue and white-sleeved robe was similar to Jylan’s and identical to the other Formari standing next to him. “Owain, this is Warden Guerrin, whom I spoke to you of earlier.” Oh dear…

“Warden Guerrin.” Owain intoned in a flat voice, dropping his head a little like a nod. “The Warden Commander has informed us that your magi armour, like his own, was destroyed during the capture of Redcliffe castle.” It had been taken from him long before the battle but Connor didn’t think the details were necessary. His tunic and pauldron and everything else were gone and needed to be replaced, so he nodded to Owain.

“I had assumed my armour would be replaced from the Vigil’s stocks, Guildmaster.” Connor said as politely as he could. “Am I mistaken?”

“Yes.” Owain said. “Vigil’s Keep’s stores of armour and arms have been depleted by the ascension of so many new Grey Wardens, and regardless of that fact the Warden Commander has made it abundantly clear that you require more than basic field gear.”

“I do?” He looked from the Tranquil to the Commander, and Surana only deigned to raise his eyebrows a little bit like the statement was obvious. He did?

“You already possess a winter robe of undetermined quality,” Owain continued. “You will now be fitted for appropriate battlemage armour, as well as two additional robes for appropriate summer and mid-season weather.” Connor tried to control his surprise. He knew how much _accessories_ from the Formari Guildsmen cost just from having browsed their enchanted wares. Three full outfits would cost a small fortune- something Connor thankfully had now. It wasn’t a house or guild-hall patronage, but if the Guildmaster _himself_ was going to work on the armour then Connor was alright with trading gold he didn’t really need for armour that would last him the next twenty years.

“Do keep in mind what I said about his weight, Owain.” This was not nearly as bad as Connor had thought it might be. “That tunic is too large for him now but as he recovers he’ll regain the strength in his arms, so don’t make the measurements too small.”

“Additional room will be left in the seams.” The Guildmaster stated, and then continued his business.

Connor was told to stand on a fitting platform and stand naturally as the two formari circled him, then to straighten up and hold that position for several minutes. Zevran was sitting on one of the couches in the room flipping through a book of fabrics from the Formari, occasionally commenting to Surana about them.

“I think you’d look nice in this green one,” the assassin purred, rubbing his fingers over one of the samples.

“I don’t.”

“You’re right, with your hair it would make you look sickly. What about the amber?”

“Amaranthine’s colour is gold, Zevran. I’m getting another gold robe.”

“Yes but you’re already commissioning these three for Connor,” Uuh… “Meaning you can still treat yourself to a replacement and a _fancy new amber_ robe for yourself as well.”

“No.” Surana’s voice was dead-pan.

“Why don’t I ever get fancy enchanted formari armour?” Zevran complained, the room oblivious to Connor’s sudden discomfort from the fitting platform.

“Because you have fancy enchanted formari _daggers_ that cost more than my armour.” The Commander explained.

“Yes, and I love them! But just think of how smashing I would look in dragon skin armour trimmed with fine velveteen?”

“Go right ahead, but I’m not paying for it.”

“This is favouritism, blatant and-”

“ _Zevran._ ”

Connor remained standing there with his arms up until it began to physically pain him. And then, because he couldn’t quite handle the calm chatter near him about which fabric looked nicer and what Rowan thought of her new bedroom, which was down on one of the lower levels of the Keep, he had to say something. Finally, as his hands were being sized for gloves by the Guildmaster, Surana mentioned _‘this evening’s proceedings_ ’ and Connor found his voice.

“Commander, I, um… Oh, thank you.” He was helped down from the platform and had to stand there sheepish and shy with everyone’s attention. “I assumed I would be covering the costs of these replacements.”

“Certainly not.” Surana said with straight confidence. “I’ve never expected the soldiers of the Vigil to pay for their own armour, Corporal, I wouldn’t start with you.” That was very nice to hear, _but_ -

“The other two robes, sir, those aren’t…” The Warden Commander lifted both thin blond brows and Connor’s words died. “I mean- thank you, _but_ _Commander_.”

“You are a mage.” Surana stated. “You need not wear them every hour of every day, Connor, but they’ll distinguish you from the help and other denizens. Properly made robes will help your focus when working and make mundane casting much easier on you.” He _knew that_ yes, but they were still horribly expensive, hence the reason why Connor had never bought a second or third set to go with his gift from the Inquisition. “I will not have my Warden and Apothecary wandering about in handprint-stained tunics.” Maker, did the _entire keep_ still know about that?

“That was one shirt, sir.”

“And the last one.” Surana finished shortly, then turned to look at Rowan. “You are free to explore the Vigil today. There are other children about but you may not leave the castle grounds and must return to supper in these chambers at the evening bell. I would suggest you visit your mabari in the kennels first, but if you wish to wait for your brother then do so outside as we have other matters to discuss.” He nodded to dismiss her and Rowan didn’t like that very much, but she stood up, dropped a small curtsy to the Commander, and cast a forlorn look back at Connor before leaving the room.

Zevran stood up before Rowan was properly gone.

“I have matters to see to.” He explained with a stretch of his arms and back, then gave a cheerful grin at them and left.

“Warden Commander, your commissioned robes and enchantments will be completed by the end of this month.” Guildmaster Owain stated, his assistant cleaning up the tapes and notes that they’d used to measure Connor. “It would be prudent of me to inquire after Formari Compounder Ansera and observe his working conditions before my return to Amaranthine.”

“If you are asking for permission, Owain, consider it granted.” Surana needed say nothing more to dismiss the two Tranquil, but once they left the Archmage did betray an uncomfortable shudder. He truly did not like them. “This way, Connor. I trust you have concerns and plenty of arguments to make about this afternoon?”

Surana ushered Connor into his office, sat him down across from the low, wide desk, and they settled down to discuss the fact that… no. Connor didn’t have any arguments.

“Really?” Surana asked, honestly surprised by this. “You’re not going to deflect? Put the glory on someone else’s shoulders? Tell me I’m making a mistake or I have it all wrong again?”

“N… No… I don’t think so, sir…” He was bashful and uncomfortable but no, Connor didn’t protest this time. “The entire Order saw me bear lightning down on the Nightmare and bring Redcliffe’s forces back into the battle. Specifics don’t really matter, they want someone to praise and it’s important to morale.”

“I’m shocked, Warden.” Please don’t make a big thing about this. “Pleased, but shocked. Alright, this is going to go much faster than I thought.”

Connor was being promoted to Sergeant of the Grey and Surana showed him the re-minted badges that would replace the Corporal insignia and Medic ranks lost at Redcliffe. His armour would be modified to show his increased rank as well, although Surana wouldn’t elaborate on how and Connor would have to wait until the Formari finished with and delivered it to see what the Commander had planned. He was horrified to hear that he was now in command of the Grey Warden mages: Sergeant Velanna, Ensign Sephri, and Ensign Lavellan.

“But- I’m the same rank as Warden Velanna.” And many years her junior!             

“See, I knew I’d get you to argue at some point.” Surana joked. “And I don’t care. Velanna couldn’t fight her way out of her own nightmare, but you freed dozens all on your own including my senior Wardens. If she doesn’t like it then she can go back to Clan Zathrian.” No- no, _no_ , Connor was not going to argue any further with this he simply nodded, said thank you, and allowed his Commander to move on.

“You will also receive a commendation along with the official promotion this evening in the throne room. Your robe from Skyhold will be appropriate for the ceremony and I don’t intend to see it last very long. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to.”

“I really don’t want to.”

“Next time then.” No. _No more_ next times. Surana drummed his burned fingers on the box holding Connor’s medals, clicking his tongue quickly as he looked about. “I believe that about covers everything- ah.”

He stood up and walked towards his bookshelves. Surana kept a wide array of items on the shelves that covered two walls of his office. Magical crystals, old artefacts, spell reagents and assorted memorabilia from his travels and adventures. This of course included a great many books of different sizes and subjects, and Suran pulled a particularly large one with a pale blue binding from his shelf now. He needed both hands to carry it, the spine and corners edged with silver and the front cover set with a wide bronze plate.

When he put it down it made a great slamming noise, and shook the stacks of paper and dishes from the Commander’s breakfast.

“Read this,” he said, red knuckles curled over the cover. “Study it, and make sure you understand it. I would like you to come back in a few days so we can begin going over it.”

“That’s a very big book, sir.”

“And it’s full of very important magical theory. Get to work, Sergeant.”

He did. After his promotion in front of the cheering, championing noise of the Vigil, and seeing the dusty but not terrible state of his workshop, Connor finally lugged the great book up on to his work table and cracked the cover on the mighty tome.

_On the Nature and Communion of Beneficially Natured Denizens of the Fade, and their Correlative Effects on Matters of Creation._

_Markus Etrantum, Enchanter of Cumberland, Published 6:17 Steel_

Oh dear, this was not going to be a light or simple read… The first chapter was sixty pages long.

“That is the book.” Jylan’s voice brought him out of the first few of those pages. The Tranquil was looking down at the great volume open in front of him. He had a broom in hand after wiping down the cabinets, counters, and table to clear away the dust of a winter spent shut up. It took Connor a moment longer to understand.

“This is the book?” He said. “The one you and Amara…?”

“Yes. That is the book.” Not the same copy, no, but the same title.

Connor took a breath, held it, took brief note of the medicinal ingredients Jylan laid out to keep him comfortable and going for the rest of the day, and then reached down to drag out the stool next to the one he was sitting on.

“Put that aside and come sit down then,” he said, nodding to the broomstick Jylan set in the corner. “Two heads are better than one. I thought a sentence was only supposed to be as long as a breath?”

Jylan took the seat and the two of them, together, recited and studied the magic on the pages before them.

* * *

 

By the end of his first week at home, Soren was in an excellent mood and even better humour.

He’d sent his letters off to Nevarra, and promoted Connor. He had confirmation from various sources telling him that the Wardens of Soldier’s Peak had fallen into open panic and in-fighting with the sealing of the passage and over _half_ their numbers had defected and escaped the keep to flee to Highever, seeking asylum and a way home from Teyrn Cousland. A force of only a hundred Orlesian Wardens of unknown health and morale were all that remained in Soldier’s Peak, and the thaw was only a few more weeks away.

Fergus had answered his inquiry into the Teyrn’s current needs and opinions concerning fostered youths and squires with a cheerful suggestion that Soren _‘bring the lad to the summer Landsmeet’._

Morrigan had communicated early success with her endeavours in Tevinter, but cautioned him not to mistake that as a sign of her imminent return home. She repeated her warning not to have Soren send Kieran to South Reach.

Nothing could ruin his mood. Not until:

“Soren,” Ansera had the apothecary up and running again with Connor’s oversight and know-how, this pleased both the midwife and the horsemaster. “Mm, _brother_?” He just needed to finish this report from Bann- “Hey, asshole!”

“ _What?_ ” Soren looked up from his desk and his work, saw Zevran standing there leaning over him, and sat up properly. “What?”

“We have a visitor.” Zevran stated, and moved as if he was telling Soren to follow him.

“Is it a surprise?” He asked, “Who is it?”

“You did something stupid.”

“I did not.”

“Bullshit. _Come_.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about, but alright.” He capped his pen, set aside his work, and stood with a small stretch before following. They only made it to the office door before Zevran stopped and turned on him.

“Anora is here.” That- _what?_ “Her herald just arrived a few minutes ago, so Soren, tell me: _why is she here?_ ” Oh no, this couldn’t-

“I have no idea.” Soren lied. Badly. So badly in fact that when he read Zevran’s face his friend was already demanding _‘What did you do?_ ’ very quietly under his breath. Soren curled his tongue behind his teeth for a moment, and tried to step around him.

“ _What did you do?”_ the question was repeated as a hiss.

“Has Garevel already begun preparing a suit for her Highness?” He asked, walking away and completely ignoring-

 _“What the **hell** did you do?”_ -Zevran.

This was not a good sign. Alistair had told him she was away from court in Gwaren, it worried him that two weeks later she was calling _here_ unannounced but Soren didn’t have time to fret over it.

He reached the throne room in time to help Garevel keep his wits and ordered one of the Vigil’s royal suits cleaned and prepped immediately. They confirmed with the kitchen that they would have a fine roast prepared for Her Majesty even if they had to slaughter something just for her. The stables were alerted, footmen prepared, and the Herald wearing Her Highness’s green trim and white dragon was drilled for how many people were in attendance with the Queen, the duration of her stay, and any clue the woman could give them as to the Queen’s purpose in coming.

“Her Highness has stated that she will dine with the Arl of Amaranthine and his noble family this evening after she has rested and refreshed herself from the road.” That was not a comforting thought but Soren said it would be done and then retreated to make sure that what Anora demanded _would_ come to pass.

 “But _why_?” Kieran was devastated when Soren caught him before he could sneak away with Thomas, Nathaniel’s nephew, and Sorran, Oghren’s fire-haired daughter.

“I don’t know why, but we do not ignore requests from her Majesty.” So the boy had to bathe, and change, and be made presentable despite his disappointment. Rowan was terrified when she realized she had to part from not only her brother’s side, but Ansera’s as well. She handled sitting with Soren for a few hours a day to discuss and practice her magic just fine, but he knew she didn’t feel comfortable with him. Unfortunately, the girl had no choice.

“But can’t Connor come with us?” The girl pleaded with him, and Soren chose not to be annoyed with her anxiety over being parted from familiar faces for an hour or two. It was unlikely that at such a young age she’d ever been taken to court, but on the other hand: she knew Alistair, why _wouldn’t_ she know Anora? “Or _Jylan?_ ”

“I’m afraid that given Compounder Ansera’s condition, I cannot present him to Queen Anora.” At least not without a damned good explanation and justification for it. Ansera had not been invited and thus he could not come.

Soren was about run off his feet when Zevran finally ran out of patience.

“Soren I _mean it_.” He had to stop what he was doing, which was quiet a lot, and pay attention to Zevran when he spoke like that. It was necessary that he just put everything else aside and listen. They had only minutes now before Her Majesty’s arrival and Soren had to spend them in one of the Vigil’s corridors calming his friend. “ _Why_ is Anora here? And why did she come all this way to dine with two children?”

“Her Majesty was crucial in helping back House Guerrin into the corner we had them in.” Soren finally came clean, a little bit, but he already knew it wouldn’t be enough and it wasn’t. Zevran gave him that mad-eyed stare again and Soren took a breath just to let it out with a grunt. “It’s alright, I can handle this.”

“What did her support _cost you,_ Soren?” His friend demanded. “You had a debt over her, she owed you her _throne_. How in damnation did you go from having the Queen of Ferelden in your pocket to all of this running about like a countryside Bann?” Soren bit his tongue, and then he wished he’d been more subtle about it. “ _Soren._ ” He put his hands up for peace but Zevran only granted him a moment’s worth of it.

“I traded the debt for her pressure on Alistair, which _you_ were there for,” he said. Zevran considered that with his mouth twisted in a grim line, then nodded.

“And then she capitalized on your aggression and gave you her banner.”

“No,” Soren admitted, bracing for:

“ _What the hell do you mean: **no**!?”_

“Stop that. _Ah-_ ” He scolded, and then had his head grabbed on both sides by Zevran’s hands. He grit his teeth and forced a hand between them, fingers curled and one pointing up as a warning between their faces. “ _Do not_.”

“Tell me what the fuck you promised that harpy before I make your ears the same length again.” Zevran threatened him, and it was empty, but it didn’t feel empty in his grasp. “Or have you forgotten what the hell happened the _last time_ you did something in Queen Mac Tir’s honour?”

“You’re over-reacting,” he grunted, and tried to get out.

“If she puts you back in Fort Drakon, then this time I’m killing the Queen.”

“ _Shut up_.” Soren scolded him and made sure he knew he _meant it_ this time, pulling hard enough to make Zevran relent and _let go_ of him. “No one is killing _anyone_ , or are you out to ruin me? I knew what I was getting into when I made my case to Anora, now let me handle the consequences.”

“Tell me the _exact_ terms you gave her.” Soren pursed his lips at the demand, but raised his hands to keep Zevran from going off the rails again.

“The value of Kieran’s life,” he said. “To me. It is a personal debt, Zevran, leave it be.” His friend and bodyguard was quiet for several seconds, face guarded.

“I’m going to hit you.” He said, stone-faced.

“Grow up.”

“Very hard. You should duck.”

“Zevra-”

Zevran hit him very hard. He should have ducked.

“And now I’m bleeding- _how does this help?_ ” Soren hissed at him, the heel of his palm up under his nose, trying to sort through how badly he’d been hit and whether the pain between his eyes was from anger or the strike. Now he had to face Anora with a bruised face? He had to change his shirt again? _This did not help!_

“Last time, she betrayed my friend and had him tortured and beaten in that hellish tower,” Zevran said. He came up with a square of linen and took Soren’s wrist in a rough hold, rubbing the cloth against his palm to wipe off the blood. He then made to go for his face and _oh no_ , that was not going to happen. “This time you’re family, and you’re the only one I have.” Zevran pulled Soren’s hand down, slapped the linen down in his palm, and then released him. He didn’t blink or smile or break from that dark and angry expression of his as he spoke. “I don’t care what you promised her, Soren. If she hurts you, or Kieran, or Morrigan, or the Wardens? She dies.”

“Stop saying that, it’s treason,” he warned, tending to his own face with the fabric first, and then a weave of cooling magic.

“Anora is _your Queen_ , brother. _My King_ is a do-nothing controlled by merchants and Crows.” Zevran then set a hand on his shoulder, squeezing there until Soren deigned to look at him again, and of course he was still feeling serious and reserved. “Be careful, Soren, for my sake.” Curse him, because now Soren had to take his words even closer to heart.

“You got blood on my best white robe.”

“Whoops,” Zevran crooned, lifting his hands up with an animated shrug. “My heart bleeds for your loss, much like your nose is right now.”

“ _I’ll be careful.”_ He said in his brother’s language, and Zevran pursed his lips for a serious moment, then nodded to him.

“Thank you.” And that was enough of that.

Anora was good at what she did because she was _patient_ with it. She arrived in her carriage with two Ladies-in-Waiting, the daughters of powerful Banns from Gwaren, and her white fur shawl was studded with small gemstones that seemed to glow over her spilling green silks as she lightly descended from the decorated box she’d ridden in. Her Majesty did not look like a woman who’d spent four days on the road from court, her blond hair was tight and neatly braided in two circular buns behind her head, a diadem of uncut, polished emeralds cresting her brow.

She was courteous, charming, and downright delightful. She greeted the Fereldan Wardens and they saluted in turn in their polished and prepared armour, the Silver Order placed between the Wardens and their Queen as a sign of loyalty and respect for the crown. It was not usual for Her Majesty to travel with such a light entourage, but the distance was just short enough and her companions numbering just _enough_ to make it a curiosity and not deliberately odd. If she’d arrived unannounced with six banns and a party of fifty, Garevel may have had a heart-attack and died from the stress.

Her Royal Majesty Queen Anora was delivered to her prepared rooms and it was understood that she would bathe and rest and enjoy a light meal within her chambers before presenting herself for evening prayer, which Soren also attended, and then proceed to a private dinner in his chambers with Kieran and Rowan.

She was _patient._ Dinner arrived and… nothing happened. Soren wasn’t poisoned by his own kitchen, and his Queen was not rude or vicious with him. She congratulated him on the campaign hard won and then turned her affectionate gaze on Rowan. The girl _did_ know the Queen and answered Anora’s beckoning hands after the final course was finished.

“Poor thing, ‘tis a tragedy to bear so much grief so early in life,” the Queen soothed the child, no real deception lining her words or hiding behind her eyes. “I know it must seem a terrible sacrifice to make for your magic, but perhaps it need not all be suffering. Rowan, I understand you have become acquainted with your brother?”

“Yes, your Majesty.” Rowan answered properly, if a little feint for the attention in what was still a strange new setting.

“How do you find him, sweet child?” Anora coaxed in a gentle voice.

“He’s very ill, your Majesty,” she explained. “And he does not have much time for me.”

“That is a shame, but perhaps,” and then she looked across the table at Soren, who was waiting patiently to see how this all played out. “Now that he has returned to his home and soon to his regular duties, there will be more time in the future. Do I have the right of things, Warden Commander?”

“Indeed, your Highness.”

“And what of you, young master?” Anora addressed his son and Soren told himself to sip his wine and not react. “Kieran, is it? A fine name. Do you also carry the seed of magic inside of you?” Mm…

“I-” Kieran did not take well to the question, eyes glancing quickly to Soren before he remembered not to show his nerves so plainly. “No, your Majesty. I do not share my parents’ gifts.” He had his own talents and abilities, or at least he’d _had_ them before Flemeth’s interference, but that was in no way Kieran’s fault. Whatever Flemeth had done to him, Soren was more comfortable with the idea of his child carrying no talent for magic than most probably expected. Kieran would never have to be sent away to the College for training. He would never be at risk of ending up in a place like Kinloch Hold.

“How curious.” Anora said in a bright voice, smiling radiantly at Soren and _there_ it was. She was hiding something _now_ and he didn’t like it. Don’t talk to his son and then smile at him, Anora, it soured his wine and put off his appetite. “Do you understand your father’s role in our nation, young Kieran?”

“I- yes, your Majesty,” Kieran answered promptly. He looked at Soren again for help but all he could do was offer a short nod. Yes, explain it to her. “My father is the Arl of Amaranthine, ruler of one of the six Arlings of Ferelden. He represents the Banns of Amaranthine and their concerns in the Fereldan Landsmeet in Denerim once a year. He is also the Warden Commander of Ferelden, and leads the Grey Wardens in this part of Thedas.”

“Your tutors have not neglected the importance of government in your learning,” Anora praised, and Soren’s blood-pressure went up a _little_ bit. “Are you competent in our other studies?” Kieran was very quiet with the question sitting in his lap, and he gave away how uncomfortable he was by looking across the table at Rowan before remembering the Queen again.

“I believe so, yes.” He answered modestly. “I know of Chasind, El’vhen, Chantry and Fereldan history, and I also practice maths and geometry.”

“What of music?” Anora asked him, and Kieran shook his head with a soft no. “Literature? Poetry?” Kieran could read and write his letters clearly, there was nothing stopping him from reading stories and some of the histories certainly read like poems- but ultimately no, and he shook his head again. “What of your martial skills?”

With that question her motive pinged in his mind.

‘ _She wants to decide who fosters him_.’ Soren understood. He knew what she wanted. This was not the worst thing Anora could have asked of or demanded from him, this was almost painless save the anxiety of having to part from Kieran and having no say in where- oh no…

“The sword and shield are an honourable discipline in Ferelden, certainly you know as much.”

“I’m not nearly strong enough to carry a shield, your Majesty.” There was a problem with this. But was it a terrible one or just uncomfortable to consider?

“Not yet, no, but given time and proper training I am certain the ability would come easily to you.” There had to be a solution, didn’t there? Of course there was. He just had to find it. “Don’t you agree, Arl Surana?” Oh.

“Completely, your Highness.” Stupid, throw-away answer. Think. _Think._

“After-all, you cannot expect to ride your father’s coat-tails for your entire life,” Anora joked with him and it made Kieran wilt in his chair. “You are, after all, ineligible for the title of Heir to Amaranthine. Tis a shame, and begs the question of where the Chantry would stand had both of your parents been elves instead of just the one.” Soren set his jaw, that was a _cruel_ thing to say to a child, Anora.

“It is no fault of Kieran’s that I am unable to make an Arlessa of his mother,” Soren defended, and Anora did not approve of his backbone. “We are promised to each other, your Highness. When the Chantry manages to drag its feet into this age then it will find us waiting for it.”

“That would not change the fact, your grace, that Amaranthine belongs to the Grey Wardens,” Anora corrected him with a smile. “Bastard or not, one cannot promote a military commander based _exclusively_ on bloodline.” Very well. He lifted his fingers off the table to signal his retreat from the topic. He’d used the same argument himself to keep marriage proposals and fostering suggestions away from his own Banns. “My point, as you have no doubt gleaned, Commander, is that your son’s education is no longer satisfied by tutors and parents. To be socialized _beyond_ the walls of Vigil’s keep would do him infinite good. You would be gravely remiss in neglecting his needs in these areas, your Grace, and it is not in your character to ignore the simplest path to mutual benefits.”

“Mutual how, your Highness?”

“Why, is it not obvious?” _Spell it out_ anyways. “My noble husband is need of a squire, and your son is in need of a guiding hand.” Alistair then. Denerim, almost exactly the same distance from Vigil’s Keep as Highever. Squired to his close friend and the King of their nation, he would be staying with an ally, close to a Queen who did not _like_ Soren but the argument could be made that there was no one else in the country cleverer than she. If she wanted to turn Kieran against Soren somehow, for whatever reason, then he’d still learn politics from no one better unless they shipped him to Antiva or Orlais. But the _problem_ was still there.

Soren held his silence because he was focusing on the _problem_. It was big, it had a temper, and it would require a great deal of soothing and sweet-talk on Soren’s part. He had his hands set on the arms of his chair, his wine too far away to reach for without his stalling being obvious. Kieran was waiting for him to say something, Rowan was pretending she’d vanished.

“Certain _debts_ would be cleared, your Grace.” Anora purred the condition to him and Soren curled his bottom lip, biting it hard for a moment. This was not going to be pretty.

“You offer my son a place at the royal court as a squire to King Alistair.” Soren summarized. “It is one of the highest honours someone in my position can be offered, and is something only rejected by very foolish… That being said.” _Oh_ , he did not want to go through with this. He looked to Kieran. “Your thoughts, my son? This decision does involve you, after all.” Kieran looked greatly put-upon by this, but swallowed a dry lump in his throat, looked briefly at Anora, and then back at Soren with his answer.

“Thomas’ uncle-” Kieran’s voice caught again, but he mustered through it. “He’s arranged for Thomas to squire with Ser Derren, one of your Banns, father. Denerim is far, but if Mother consents then I think I would like to see Castle Denerim from the inside. I don’t think it will be as terrible as Halamshiral.” But there was the _problem_.

Morrigan would not like this. Soren would have had a hard sell if the matter was up to him completely, but if she knew he’d been _blackmailed_ into it? Then she couldn’t know. Soren was not going to tell her it was blackmail, because blackmail would make the entire situation completely unbearable. Was he really going to be able to keep a secret from her for a good five or more years? Probably not, but she was skilled at keeping things from _him_ so no doubt it was time for Soren to try his hand with a bit more effort.

If she found out he’d been blackmailed and then _lied_ to her about it, the outcome would not fall in his favour. This was not a good position to be in.

“You have my son’s consent and my debt to consider, Your Majesty.” Soren stated as politely as he knew how, and when he hit a stumbling-block with his words he said the only thing that made sense. “Rowan and Kieran, you are both dismissed from the table.” He startled both children but it didn’t matter.

“Father-?”

“Show Rowan to her room,” he said with a small gesture from his hand. And to Rowan: “Go.”

The children left, Zevran was given a _sharp_ look telling him to stay out of the dining room, and Soren struggled with his nerves as he threaded his fingers together and rested his hands on the table. He was staring at the decanter of wine sitting between them. When he spoke he was sincere but he had no way of convincing Anora of it.

“The condition of our agreement, Anora, was that you may demand anything of me that is within _my_ power.” He said, and he spoke quickly, gaze falling to the floor not far from the table. “I share responsibility for my son, but without Morrigan’s consent I-” curse his pride because this was true and it needed to be said. “I… I _cannot_ fulfill this demand.”

“You mean you _will not_ ,” She told him, her face and voice suddenly icy with him.

“No.” He said, and quickly, before she could attack. “Unless you can convince his mother to consent to this, it cannot happen. I can order Kieran packed and ready and off in a week, standing in front of Alistair and presenting himself as a squire. I can do that: but unless Morrigan’s opinion is swayed then he will not _stay_ there.”

“He agreed himself, right here before us both.”

“His _mother_ will not allow it.” Then, because he could see where this was going, Soren showed both his scarred palms and pushed his chair back, standing as he spoke. “Anora, you offer me a good deal-”

“I offer you _more_ than you deserve,” She hissed at him, teeth bared. “It is an insult that I should demand _so little_ of one who thinks himself _so great_. Your son will squire at Castle Denerim, where he will be educated, groomed, and trained as a Knight of Ferelden. This is a _boon_ to you.”

“I understand that and if circumstances were different, Your Majesty, then I would gladly accept this arrangement. But this is not something I can simply wave my hands and consent to: Alistair _knows_ Morrigan, he can confirm that-”

“Your _bastard_ ,” Anora did not care, she rose to her feet with her emerald earrings swaying, lips white with fury and chin raised to lord over him. “Will squire at Castle Denerim, in the care of _your sworn king_ , Arl Surana of Amaranthine. If the boy is not delivered to court by the Summer Landsmeet and presented to my husband, then _you_ will never show your face in these lands again.”

Soren had dropped his eyes to discourage her fire but looked at her in shock when the threat landed.

“You would exile-”

“No,” she uttered, and it wasn’t just a threat, what dripped next from her lips was a simple truth that he was honour-bound to obey. Anora took a slow, lethal step towards him to crowd Soren on purpose, and her voice did not move beyond his scarred ear. “You will _leave_. No warning. No reason. _Nothing_. You will abandon Amaranthine, desert your country, and vanish from the ranks of your own Order. The College of Enchanters will never hear from you again. The Divine will lose her Grey Warden muse. Alistair will never know what happened. Noble word once given cannot be broken, Surana, and you pledged your _very name_ to me to save your son. Give him to me, or I will take _everything_ else from you. Your Grace is _dismissed_.”

She ended the meal and swept past him, her silks sighing in the candle-lit salon before the large carved door swung open and let her out and away with her waiting ladies. Soren was frozen where her words had held him by the table, and when he did not hear the door shut again behind her he closed his eyes.

Breathe even. Breathe calm.

It didn’t work. He slipped off his iron ring connecting him to Morrigan and Kieran, left it on the table, and turned away from it to go further through the apartments.

“Soren?” Zevran’s voice. The door closed behind him.

Soren cupped a hand over his mouth and walked. Breathe even. Breathe calm. Don’t make noise because noise drew attention and attention in the tower was dangerous if it wasn’t for the right things. Don’t shake, don’t cry, don’t you _dare_ scream or the Templars would come, and if the Templars took notice of you then it would only end badly.

Eadric had been noticed. Eadric had learned to cry quietly to stop getting attention. Eadric’s bruises had taught Soren the same lessons without the same punishments. Young elf boys with their beautiful eyes and soft hair and delicate ears did not want anyone to notice them. Jowan had screamed, but screaming upset the other apprentices. Apprentices who screamed and screamed even when there was nothing wrong with them and no one near them got taken away and put in the dark until they stopped. Jowan had learned to laugh instead, Soren had learned to be quiet and that was why no one had ever put him in the dark. Breath even. Breathe _calm_.

  _‘You displayed no hesitation in coming to me in the first place with things you should never have known, so certainly you have no objections to continuing to prove your cleverness and value to the Circle.’_ No, no, no, go away, Irving. Go _away. ‘Discover their plot in all its details, or I will have to consider adding your name to Greagoir’s ledger. One cannot abide by runaways and their abetters going unpunished, now can we? There’s a good lad.’_

When you walked into something with both eyes open but overplayed your hand and knew you would not escape unscathed because _you_ were your own _worst enemy_ \- that fear. That was the cold sweat of terror breaking out between his shoulders, running damp across his chest.

Anora was going to take everything. She could take everything and she could get it all done on her terms because Soren had given her that power. He’d surrendered everything and now she was going to use it against him and he couldn’t stop her because _noble word once given could not be broken_. Even if he did break, if he went against her, blew open the plot, he would disgrace himself and _still_ lose everything. To vanish would be a mystery, and the friends he had in high places could still be told, however quietly, that he had simply done something foolish in his politics and had to leave because of it. Anora would win because Soren had forfeited his position in this sick game.

He was going to lose everything because he couldn’t make Morrigan- no, was that it? _Morrigan?_ That was his only barrier? Maker Take Him, he could handle his own _wife._

This was a stupid reaction to have, heart kicking in his chest and ribs cracking from the struggle not to pant and wheeze and have his lungs shrivel up in his chest. Nothing was wrong with him. He’d been threatened, boo-hoo, that happened all the time. Threats were a part of the game that involved powerful people making dangerous deals and taking dire risks with the lives of the people who relied on and followed them. Breathe even. _Breathe_ _calm_. Eamon had threatened to kill his son. Teagan had threatened him with charges of civil war and treason. Zevran had threatened to cut his ears. Words, all of them, empty and powerless little boasts.

He was fine. This was fine. Anora wanted something from him that would be difficult but not impossible to deliver. He just needed to see Morrigan. Talk to her. Calm her. Convince her if _nothing else_ to simply promise not to steal Kieran away from Castle Denerim. That was it. That was all he needed to do. Kieran had his ring and would be fine. He would be with Alistair who would never let anything happen to him. Soren just needed a simple promise from his mistress and his love and his promised one and because she loved him, Morrigan would agree.

He didn’t need to tell her about the threat because it was just a threat and even if it was something well within Anora’s power to- and she could- and _he-_

Stop. Stop. Stop. Breathe. Calm down. Be _calm_. Stop. He was fine. Nothing was wrong with him.

“What’s wrong?” Nothing. Go away, Zevran. “Soren? _Brother, look at me_.” Always in _Antivan_.

“I’m fine.” He took his hand from his mouth and made the statement, letting his arm fall because it was suspicious of him if he kept it up near his face like that. “I just need to think, Zevran.” Voice even. Words solid. Good.

“At the end of a black hallway?” The lamps had not been lit in the short corridor from the salon to the different private rooms. “Soren, come back to the light. What’s wrong?” Soren was beside the door to his and Morrigan’s bedchamber, Kieran’s and Zevran’s at the other end where Zevran was standing when he turned to face him. Calm. His face was clear and he was not distressed because he was _fine_.

“Nothing is wrong,” he said. He grumbled it, pushing annoyance onto the words as he answered the summons and came back to the door. “Can I not have a moment to clear my head after a meeting like that? I would have let you inside in a minute, there’s no need for that sorry look.”

“What did the harpy want?”

“Nothing worth killing over, so calm down.” Sardonic tone, roll his eyes a little. He was fine. He was fine. He was fine. “I just need to find the time now to go and see Morrigan before the Landsmeet.”

“That will be quite hard without this.” Oh. Zevran held up the ring he’d left on the table in the other room. Soren reached for it but Zevran’s clever fingers tugged it out of reach and palmed it quickly. “You took it off because you’re upset about something and didn’t want Morrigan or Kieran to know. Explain.”

“I’m fine now so give it back.”

“But you _were not_ when I walked in and you are going to tell me why.”

“ _Someone_ filled my head with memories of Fort Drakon right before I had to face Her Majesty today.” He said in a foul and impatient voice this time. The lie fell smoothly from his lips “Forgive me if _this_ experience of being powerless brought up the unpleasant worries of the previous one. Give it back, Zevran.”

“What is she doing? Marrying you off to one of her hand-maidens?”

“You know, that would actually be much worse.” There, that thought helped him quite a bit actually. “Thank you. Now give me back my ring.” Zevran considered him for a long moment, and then finally lowered his hand and offered the ring. Soren took and quickly returned it to his finger, where it belonged.

“So what is her demand, exactly?” Zevran asked again, standing very close but not crowding into him the way the Queen had.

“Kieran is to become Alistair’s squire. I just have to make sure Morrigan lets it happen.” There, how much simpler and non-threatening did it sound when he put it that way?

“What- that’s it?” Zevran asked, gesturing lamely with both hands. “No heavy restrictions on you? No cavorting around Denerim in your smallclothes? Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he stated with a satisfied smile.

“You’re lying, but okay… what happens if Morrigan won’t agree?” His smile fell. Mistake. He should not have let that happen.

Zevran didn’t say anything. What he did do was take Soren’s hand firmly in his, squeeze it hard for a moment, and then rest it against his chest. He touched their foreheads together and after a moment of that warmth Soren just closed his eyes. Breathe even. Breathe calm…

“So, when do we tell Kieran the good news?” He made himself smile at the quip. Tight, not too big, not too forced. A shy snort was enough to play at amusement.

“Right now, preferably before he and Rowan kill each other.”

“Lead on, my friend. I am ever your shadow.” Soren stepped away from him, and…

“Thank you.”

 


	52. In Life, Diligence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very long last chapter with no page-breaks! This is your warning, stretch your legs now before its too late!

 

Within Vigil’s Keep there was no expectation, not from anyone, that Connor would lay on his back and be miserable until the day he finally jumped up fully prepared to go ride off and kill darkspawn. He was given that first week of rest, and then swiftly found himself busy, and then busier, and busier.

He quite liked it this way too.

“Apologize to him.” His first task was to oversee his workshop as Jylan performed most of the labour to get it back up and running after the silent winter. Connor dealt with the people who came with injuries or requests for the workshop’s services, and these tasks were the right challenge for someone who could not always count on his physical strength. “ _Now._ ” Including the unpleasant ones.

“Warden Guerrin, I-” _Apologize._ “He’s just a Tranquil, sir, it’s not like he really knows what that even means-”

“He knows, _I know_ , and you have _three seconds_ before you leave this room on fire- _broken arm and all!_ ” The next person to call Jylan dead in spirit or soul wasn’t going to get a warning from Connor. He was sick of it. If they had a problem with Jylan then they could walk to Amaranthine for better care because Connor would not have it anymore. The next and last person to try insulting Jylan for conversation’s sake not only got thrown out of the workshop, but Connor made sure to give them a good crack from behind with lightning to make sure they wouldn’t come back. No one even bothered to scold him for it.

His next order was helping his sister settle into the Vigil.

“I’m so _sick_ of drawing triangles…” Rowan was progressing in her lessons with the Warden Commander, however she was no warmer with him than she’d been in South Reach. She spent her mornings doing chores she hated outright but had to perform under Mistress Felsi’s supervision, and reported to the Warden Commander for lessons in the afternoon before eventually finding Connor in his workshop by evening. Connor was alright to hear her complain but never agreed with her anger or indignity over the labour.

“Strong bodies make for stronger magic, sister.” He chastised, and helped her keep her wrist straight, finger pointed and a bead of light focused on the tip so she could draw her triangles. She was learning to perfect the simple design so she could use it as a building block for spell-work. “Apprentices kept the Circle Tower clean, and you will help in the laundry and the vegetable gardens. That is simply the way of things.”

“But there are _servants_ for that,” she complained. “Why can’t _they_ do it? I want to go outside.” This was something Connor had never been able to fall back on because the Tower had hosted only Mages, Templars, and the Chantry sisters. His chief complaint had only been to ask why there weren’t _any_ servants, but Jylan had set him right about it as early as his first few months. The Tranquil and the Apprentices had been Kinloch Hold’s workers.

“You’re free to go outside after lessons, sister. I’m not keeping you here.”

“Will you come with me? I want to see my horses.” Connor judged time by the light of the sun, told Jylan they’d done enough for the day, and then consented to go with his sister out to the stables.

The height and size of the animals didn’t bother her in the slightest, and Horsemaster Gaveth was always pleased to saddle and ready any of the three Redcliffe thoroughbreds for the pleasure of watching them canter about the central ring. Good horseflesh was easy to spot and a pleasure to watch in motion, and Rowan had no fear of the animals despite her small stature. Her stallion didn’t know her from any of the stable hands yet, and had to bend its long neck quite far down to take the sugar bits and carrots she offered it for a treat after riding.

Rowan’s Mabari Laklah whelped three healthy puppies just as the weather began to properly warm. The Kennelmaster was thrilled with their size and Laklah’s own strength. She had an easy time recovering and then nursing her litter. Rowan could not be parted from the dogs so Connor and the Kennelmaster agreed to let her keep the four animals in her small bedroom near Jylan’s. Unfortunately, this arrangement only lasted one night before:

“Brother, please?”

“Uugh, Rowan…”

“ _Please?_ ”

“I don’t really-” No- no don’t look at him like that. Don’t. _Don’t…_ “Alright. Yes. Thank you, sister.”

“You’ll take this one then, it’s probably the only girl.” Rowan handed him a palm full of soft grey fluff with tender claws and a wrinkled face, the poor thing whimpering in distress as soon as it felt the chill air away from its mother’s belly. Connor covered the pup with both hands and stroked its tiny back, then calmly showed the shivering creature back to its attentive mother to snuff at and take gently into her great jaw. She placed the pup back down by her tummy, and then laid her head on her basket of blankets and wool with a tired huff. The trials of motherhood.

Connor had Rowan place her hand over Laklah’s calm chest, put his palm over hers, and wove a gentle spell through both until his sister gasped and could feel her dog’s heart beating, could _see_ it through her sense of the power running steadily through the living creature. This delighted the girl endlessly, and Connor just smiled and sat back on his haunches as the girl crawled down around the large basket, hugged Laklah around her warm neck, and grinned into the mabari’s black fur.

Rowan, sadly, was the only one who was so thrilled with her mabari.

“Are you _afraid_ of dogs?” Connor asked a few days later, standing in the doorway to his workshop.

“I do not experience fear.”

“Okay, but before you were Tranquil, did you fear them then?”

“I do not believe so. There were stray dogs in the Alienage.”

“Then why are you sitting on the counter like an Orlesian who just jumped from a mouse?” Jylan was in fact up on the counter with his feet drawn up to keep away from the grey mabari sitting patiently on its rump, panting up at him and wiggling its stubby tail waiting for him to come down. “You do know that mabari can jump, right?”

“I commanded it to stay and it has ceased jumping.”

“Jylan, get off the counter.” He got down and the mabari stood, giving a loud bark before dancing on all four paws and wagging its bottom with tremendous enthusiasm. “It just wants to play with you? Mabari need bonding time, that’s probably why the Kennelmaster let him out today.”

“It should consider playing with the kennelmaster or your sister instead.”

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that Ser _‘Watch me swindle the Templar out of his coppers’_ Ansera doesn’t know how to play with a dog?” Connor watched Jylan watch him, the Tranquil repeatedly jostled and closing his eyes every time the dog begged attention with another keening bark. “What’s your excuse? C’mon, let me have it.”

“It is the middle of the day and I have many duties to attend-”

“Go outside and throw a stick for your poor dog, Jylan.” He ordered. “Go take a walk from the fortress down to the main gate. Better yet, go put those notices we drafted yesterday on the Chanter’s Board. If you need me to give you deliveries as an excuse to walk your dog, I’ll do it.”

“I do not see how being followed by the animal will improve the situation.”

“It’ll tire him out, give him the attention he wants, and put both of you in a better mood.” Connor grabbed the notices off the table, placed them in a basket with a set of poultices and oils for Mistress Valora, and shoved the Tranquil out of the workshop with his ecstatic companion. “Good day, Compounder!”

If you denied an imprinted mabari time with its chosen person then the poor animal would become despondent and sickly. They wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t hunt, and some would even refuse to defend themselves if attacked. That was what made mabari _mabari,_ and Connor was not going to let Jylan harm his just because he didn’t understand how or why the animal had bonded to him. Connor acquired another basket like the one Rowan kept Laklah in and placed it in the middle of the workshop under the table, far enough away from every edge to keep it from being a bother. Jylan was obstinate that animals did not belong in the workshop, but Connor didn’t care: look how quiet the thing was now that it had someplace comfy to sit and a large lamb bone to chew on? Wasn’t this so much better than Jylan crawling around on the countertops?

“Have you given him a name yet?” Connor asked from the final pages of that massive book Surana had given him. “Mabari don’t get names until they imprint, have you thought of one?”

“No.”

“You should.”

“The task should go to one who has the proper capacity to care for it.” Connor took a break from another half-page paragraph, held tightly to the table, and swung his head down to get a look at where the mabari was resting in his basket, head on his paws. His grey ears were up and listening but the hound was not terribly engaged with anything.

“He seems properly cared for to me.” He pulled himself back up and frowned when he saw how the practice sigil he’d drawn in the air over the table had started to break apart and untangle itself with his break in focus. Stupid thing, who needed this many interlocking pathways and radial degrees? Enchanter Etrantum of the sodding Steel Age, that was who. It had taken Connor twenty minutes just to draw _half_ the stupid thing and now he had to dispel it all and start again. Glyphs were supposed to lay flat, why did this one have so many sticky-outy bits?

“Good _morning_ , you two.” Finally, a good distraction. Connor finished clearing the air of stray magic and swiveled on his seat when Carver came into the workshop. He had great big grin on his face and flecks of dust and splinters in his black hair, an old shirt and trousers marked with his warden belt and dagger to make sure no one mistook him as anything more than a hobby carpenter. “Here to ask about that varnish to get the new fence posts treated.”

“We finished bottling it last night,” Connor told him, a satisfied warmth creeping up his chest when Carver ran a comfortable hand across his sore shoulders and down his arm, leaning in enough to press a kiss to his hair. It was nice. He liked this very much.

The mabari started growling. Carver was startled by the unfamiliar sound and Connor looked at Jylan, who had paused in the middle of stripping lotus roots to stare blankly across the room. That was about as surprised as Tranquil could get.

“Hey, _buddy?_ ” Carver bent his knees and dropped into a crouch next to Connor’s chair. His family had owned a mabari for years so he knew the dogs better than Connor did. “What’s got you all riled up? It’s just Warden Hawke here to-”

The dog gave three sharp, _loud_ barks followed up by another deep growl, and that along with its claws scratching the floor startled Carver so badly he toppled over on his ass and scrambled back. Considering everything mabari jaws could do to a horse’s flank, nevermind the human face, he was right to move like that until his back hit the cabinets and he had both hands up towards the hound. Connor could feel the table shaking with the growls.

“ _Woah_ , _there!_ ” Carver said in a deep, slow voice. “I didn’t do _anything_ , you just calm down and go back to your soup bone. I’m gonna stand up, and you’re not gonna-”

The answer was a _hideous_ noise and the gnashing of sharp jaws. Connor, who could see neither the dog nor his own vulnerable legs, immediately jumped off his stool and scrambled away from the table. Carver, ever the considerate and stalwart soldier, immediately grabbed Connor around the waist with both hands and dragged him to stand in front like a shield. _Between_ Carver and the angry dog, _brilliant._

“Oh, _thank you,_ ” Connor grumbled, twisting a little but Carver was holding him _very_ tightly. “Brave warrior you are.”

“It doesn’t _hate you_ and I’m not _stupid_.” The angry table was not coming any closer to them and that was a relief, Jylan was still completely frozen with his gloves and peeler. “By the way, your armour just arrived upstairs. Evie and I want to see it.” Carver put a kiss to his neck and-

The mabari went _ballistic_ under the table and it was alright to shriek like a pair of little boys because mabari were _terrifying_ when angry. Carver up and bolted from the workshop, gone at a flat sprint Connor envied because all he had was the crackle and pulse of a barrier spell that didn’t get a chance to leave his hands before the barking stopped.

Out came the mabari, ears up and attention focused on the door, tail pointed straight up in the air and one paw raised in mid-step. It snuffed at the air before giving a huff and came over to Connor, sniffing his feet and winding him up with anxiety because floppy jowls aside this was a _big dog_. He was huffed at much like the door, and then the mabari turned away, reared up on its hind legs, and planted its big paws on the table. It let its tongue roll out with a happy pant, tail beginning to motor back and forth as it looked at Jylan. Sought _approval_ from Jylan.

“You’re kidding me,” Connor whispered. Jylan was pulling his gloves off, the peeler and root set down, and then he knelt and all but the tips of his ears vanished under the edge of the table. The mabari immediately scampered over to him and sat there panting with anticipation.

“Good dog.”

“ _No!_ Jylan! Don’t encourage it to go attacking Wardens!”

“Not all Wardens.”

“You’re _horrible!_ ” How in the Maker’s Name had he trained it to do that? Did the dog just intrinsically _know_ that its emotionless owner didn’t like Carver and gone from there? How did a Tranquil even maintain a sense of dislike? This was too much, he needed a break.

His armour had arrived and that was something he needed to check on. There were three shallow crates waiting outside his room when he got there in a huff, unlocking the door with Evie and Carver hovering and testing the weight to see which box had his armour and the other two just the commissioned robes. Carver pouted for a few minutes about his near-death experience and Connor was still annoyed with him for using his mage as a shield.

“Start with the robes,” Evie purred, not interested in the escapades of Fereldan mabari. She claimed Connor’s chair and sat on it backwards so she could fold her arms over the back and lean her chin on them. “I want to see what colours the Commander chose for you.”

“As long as they aren’t bright orange, I think I’ll be fine with anything.” Connor watched Carver take mallet and pry bar to the crates, wedging the top off the first one and unveiling a flurry of butcher-paper and wool batting.

“Congrats, it’s half a lamb.” Carver said as he pulled several more handfuls of undyed fluff from the crate.

“Haha, you’re so funny,” Connor let his voice fall flat.

“Why do clothes need this much packaging?” Carver complained, but then stopped and let out a low whistle. “Well that’s not orange.”

“Let me see?”

“Nope. They’re yours but you’re never allowed to look at them. Awful shame.”

“ _Move_.”

Oh. No this was certainly not orange at all.

“Oh, _Connor_ , that’s lovely.” Evie stood up when Connor reached into the crate and lifted the main body of the robe out. It was a rich emerald green cut with silver bands at the cuffs, elbows, and shoulders. The front and back panels were made of velveteen with a subtle leaf motif pressed into the soft fabric, and the sides and under-arm areas were of proper dark green velvet. It was heavy in his hands and hummed with the faint song of lyrium and enchantment. It came with a wide belt of woven gold and silver cords, both shoulders subtly decorated with rearing griffons. “What a perfect colour for you, I hope it’s the spring one.”

“You need to stop bitching so much about the Guildsmen and their prices, there’s more in this box.” Carver said, flipping aside the end of the robe and looking at what was beneath it. “This is good cotton in here.”

“Put it on, Connor, I want to see you wear it.” Evie enthused, rubbing one of the velveteen sleeves between both her hands. Carver drew a shirt and trousers from the box, both dyed with good black pigment, and he was right. This _was_ nice cotton. Soft and light and meant to keep the heavier components of the robe from bothering his skin when he wore it.

“Let’s open the second one first.” There was a good but plain leather belt lined with runes to go with the trousers, and Connor was careful about folding and setting the new clothes aside, the robe finding a place to hang as Carver pried open the second box.

“Okay, we’ve found the summer robe.” This one was made of a material so light and airy Connor thought it might float away. It was held together with panels of soft white animal hide that webbed across the inside of the robe and gave it a solid and secure feeling. It was a lovely grey colour Carver said matched his eyes but Connor thought looked more like a morning sky. “Eh, same thing.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything. Why are you looking at me like I said something?”

Evie was laughing at them until she put her hand in the crate and felt something that made her gasp. She immediately pulled out another black shirt, but rubbed it between her hands and then refused to explain what was wrong or to hand it over to him.

“This, my darlings, is _silk_.” She purred the words and would not give it to him, rubbing the black fabric against her cheek and lips instead. Connor was bashful at the very idea. Enchanters wore silk, Archmages wore silk, common magi and battlemages did _not_. “Perhaps it’s just common sense. A robe so light and delicate would catch and ride up on anything less than magnificent Nevarran silk. Just touch it with your hands, boys. Imagine sleeping on _sheets_ of this.”

“Give it back, Evie. It’s not your shirt, its Connor’s.” She frowned and held it a bit closer, just to spite Carver.

“I am the only woman in this relationship, therefore I have first claim to both of your wardrobes for whatever I want to sleep in.” Connor went pink, Carver started thinking of something lewd to say. “I’ll give it back before the seasons change, otherwise you ask too much of me.”

“So what I’m getting from all of this is you would like one of us to buy you silks,” Connor managed through his soft blush.

“No, not really.” She answered brightly. “It’s simply a well-known fact that other people’s clothing is more comfortable than your own.” O… oh…

“Alright, on to the main event.” Carver removed the other two boxes from the bed, worked the last one up onto one of its own corners, and then lifted with his legs to carry the crate and place it on the quilt-covered mattress. It sank worryingly.

“He expects me to walk around in all that weight…” Connor didn’t know if he was excited or terrified as Carver took his pry bar to the last crate, but then he recoiled with a sharp swear and shook his hand. “What’s wrong?”

“It shocked me.”

There was a ward on the crate. Connor’s blushing skin kept burning. He held his hand over the wooden planks and coaxed the enchantment to show itself. It wasn’t difficult to break but required more teasing and carefully laid spell-casting than Connor might have liked. When the spell finally broke there was a quick rise and fall of fire that licked across the top and burnt the Formari Guildsmen crest into the wood. Then it was just a case of prying it off like the rest and… and…

“He did _not_ …” Connor nearly pushed Carver out of his way and reached inside. The very first thing he lifted out of the crate was a silverite gorget. The metal was hinged at the neck and from the wide, tall collar it fell in a cascade of overlapping griffon feathers to protect down his back and front to his sternum.

A blue but nearly black robe of tough hide folded over and stitched with lyrium came out next, a slit in the front and back the allowance to permit him to run or ride while wearing it. The edges were done in silverite and it had no sleeves, but it was heavy and he knew it was meant to go under the gorget to keep the metal from bruising him if he was hit or crushed by something.

“Connor, this is nicer that Evie’s armour and she’s a _Captain._ ”

“I know, I know, I-” A short quilted tunic of Warden blue and silverite went over the gorget and the robe and _it_ had sleeves, one of which was armoured from the elbow up in silverite plates etched to show a Griffon’s rearing claws. A hardy double-belt of hard leather and silverite panels and hooks followed, meant to carry the cured leather cases that were enchanted with spell-marks along the clasps and tops to keep pick-pockets and water away.

“Maker Be Praised,” Evie marvelled. “At least there’s no more need to wonder who Surana’s favourite Warden is.”

“No _shit_. These buckles aren’t silverite, Connor, they’re _silver_.”

A heavy capelet of black velvet, studded with silverite on the outside and layered inside with mail. It was enchanted to repel wind and water, and Connor seriously doubted any single part of the outfit would give in against mundane steel or simple clumsiness on his part. Maker, even the _boots_ had enchantments on the soles, and the trousers and shirt that came with it blew him away with the spellpower woven through the fabric itself.

He needed to sit down, but his bed was covered in armour and his chair was under Evie, so Connor sat on the floor. He just dropped on his rump and he sat there. This was the armour from the Fade. From the Siege of Redcliffe. This was Fade-inspired armour, the exact set Surana had argued and pushed him into in that hideous tower. It had only been modified ever-so-slightly to make it more practical for a real Grey Warden to wear for weeks at a time. The only thing missing were the gloves.

“Okay… Okay, are you crying because you’re _happy_ , or-?”

“Connor, not on the floor, _mon chere._ Come, this is all good, no?” It was good. It was all very good, but it was also very, very _frightening_ at the same time.

“This isn’t battlemage armour,” he managed to choke out, overwhelmed but telling himself that this was good. This was good. This was all good. “It’s not a Sergeant’s armour. This is _Archmage_ armour.”

They pulled him gently off the floor, each kissed him many, many times, and slowly helped him calm down from everything.

Connor was still shaken up by it a week later, and was not prepared when he learned that Evie and Carver had been given their first assignments away from the Vigil since the war. Connor did not receive the same order to ride to Highever and meet with Teyrn Cousland over the issue of Soldier’s Peak. Nor was he to go with Hassick and Sigrun to look into rumours of taint and corruption in the silverite mines of the Wending Wood. Connor didn’t get any orders at all, because he wasn’t yet properly reinstated as a Warden.

Instead he got a _suggestion_ from Oghren, which was not an order, but Connor went and threw himself at the task anyways.

“ _Eyes up, Recruits!_ ” And that task was to assist Captain Renth in brow-beating and breaking the arrogance of the Silver Order’s brand new members. “ _This_ is Warden Guerrin! As most of you nearsighted blighters can see, he’s a _mage_ , not an infantryman, not a mercenary, and not, by any means, a cavalry or guardsman!”

Captain Renth was a mature and capable swordswoman who had served Amaranthine since the fall of Arl Howe. She had no ambitions to join the Grey Wardens and that was why she had always been so good at her job as captain of the militia. She walked in her silverite plate armour back and forth in front of a company of twenty fresh soldiers come to join and replenish her drained militia. She gestured to Connor with harsh words where he was standing next to her, deeply uncomfortable in his new armour. It was _heavy_ and he was having a hard time adjusting to it.

He still hadn’t worked up the gall to ask Surana what under the Maker’s Sky had possessed him to give Connor an _Archmage’s_ arraignments. He was too scared of having the suit torn away from him, good sense aside, to dare bring the question up even when he’d already been summoned twice to the Commander’s office to review, demonstrate, and be drilled on what he’d learned from the book. Surana said he was looking forward to sending Connor out again as a Warden to actually practice his new skills, but gave no sense of when exactly that would be. In the meantime, he had to get used to the _weight_ of these robes…

“For those of you drawn by tales of our triumph at Redcliffe, you have this Warden to thank for the songs and stories.” Renth boasted, forcing him back to the right here and now. “Men and women like him have the power to burn you lot _inside out_ and then _put your innards back together again!_ But you know what they can’t do, maggots? _Run!_ Mages don’t charge head-long into battle!” Um- “They don’t take the enemy sword against their shield and crush their opponent’s arms with sheer force!” Okay, he didn’t know where she was going with this because she’d been at Redcliffe and they all knew perfectly well what Surana was capable of.

“Warden, if you will.” She addressed him and gestured for him to turn about. He was fully geared, and while she did not touch him out of respect Connor was still aware of her pointing out everything on him. “Sleeping roll, rations, water, and medic’s kit. Nevermind those robes that I guarantee you are no lighter than my armour or yours! Warden.” Connor could turn back around. He felt like an idiot, but kept his staff in hand and waited for this part of the morning to end.

“Your task is simple, children!” She stated, and the assorted recruits were not at attention because they didn’t need to be. Few of them had their armour on them, certainly no travel gear, and their weapons were common-sense belongings at best: daggers, knuckle-guards, hardened leather gloves and the like. They didn’t even have their Silver Order arms yet. “Three miles down this road is Lieutenant Hebron of the Silver Order. Lieutenant Hebron has as many silver medals as there are of you. You will run to the Lieutenant, collect your medal, and return to Vigil’s Keep _before_ Warden Guerrin.” Six miles? He would make himself run six miles. He hated running. He didn’t want to run six miles. Sigrun kept making him get out and go for shorter distances just to get him used to it again. The faster he did this the sooner the running would be over.

“Anyone who crosses this line _after_ our honourable host this afternoon will know nothing but _peeling vegetables_ and _clearly latrines_ from now till Summersend!” That was a _horrifying_ combination of duties and if the whole keep wound up with dysentery then Connor would know who to blame “Do you understand, recruits?”

 _“Yes, Captain!”_ They cheered together.

“To the line!” The recruits reorganized themselves with good-humoured jostles and jokes, a few of them sneering at Connor with his heavy burdens. With them so distracted none of them heard Renth lean over and speak to him quietly: “Don’t go easy on them, Warden, but you know your own strength. I don’t expect you to dust them just yet.”

“I doubt I’ll _dust_ anyone, Captain.” He told her honestly. “But it’s not really about speed and I’ve got water. I think I’ll be alright.”

“Hebron will help if you need it.”

“Captain, you can’t have me here to represent the Wardens and then offer me a horse. I do have my pride you know.” She smiled at him and gave him a knock on the shoulder.

“I see why Oghren likes you so much.”

Connor had time to stretch that the others did not use, and he was immediately lost in dust when the recruits tore down the road as fast as their unburdened legs could carry them. He did not go fast: he’d never been fast even before Redcliffe, but he went. He kept his arms moving, his legs a little bent to make sure he never jostled his weight around too much. When standing the cut of the robes made them look solid and too bulky to move around in, but once he started moving there was plenty of room and it was just the weight itself that bothered him. He’d get used to it, he had to.

Connor passed the first recruit only half a mile in.

His lungs hurt at one mile so he minded his pace a little more, taking a drink of water as he fell in step with a group of about five runners. Slowly, one by one, these ones dropped off to walk with their hands nursing pains in their sides.

It got much easier at the second mile, but this was also a down-hill portion of the familiar road so he just took the distance at a longer, easier stride, and ignored the cheering from the six who caught up and overtook him again at a flat sprint.

By the third mile he’d passed those six and then another group of five.

“You’re about middle of the pack, Warden.” Lieutenant Hebron told him as Connor jogged up, took the medal being held out to him by the man standing with his horse and lunch, and turned back around to go home.

He was sweating very hard, his shirt stuck to his back and his hair quite damp. He drank equally from both his water skins to keep the weight even, and trudged on past another walking recruit who was gasping for air.

He wished he had the breath for singing just to annoy the recruits when he passed the two-mile marker again going home, finally passing again the last person still heading away from the Vigil. At this mark it was now horribly uphill, and Connor passed a good five runners who were limping from cramps or exhausted from charging down this same hill an hour earlier.

 _‘I’m in pain but I’m not going to stop because I want to go home and I will do so on my own two feet_.’ He cheated. He used the taint to help boost his stamina and keep him going for the last mile. He had one more group of runners. He started enjoying himself far more than he ever had on a run when one of them realized he was there, let up a shriek, and began a clumsy dash trying to stay ahead of him.

He over took her when her slap-dash stride made something in her legs cramp.

“No, _no_ \- _go away!_ ” Connor told himself not to speed up even though he really wanted to, because it wasn’t worth hurting himself and the next man with his mabari-tattoo’d shoulder was funny to listen to. “ _Fuck you- fuck you- **no!** ” _And now they were astride one another. _“I served- the king’s- fucking-!_ ” The soldier staggered, Connor carried forward with the taint chewing complacently on his calves.

Five hundred yards. Four hundred. Three.

“Why are you humming!? How are you _hu-_ ” bad time to yell at him, another recruit staggered on weak knees with a rough cough and Connor’s heavy, sore legs just kept moving. He was not running fast or clean, but he was still moving just as much as before.

Two hundred yards. One hundred. Fifty.

“Three… two- _one!”_ The last pair of runners broke into an all-out sprint. One of them was elven and the other had a mabari tattoo on his arm and Andraste’s sunburst on the back of his neck. Connor did not sprint, he just smiled and watched them bolt ahead of him, kicking up dirt and flailing their arms with sweat drenching their backs and running down their necks. The elf crossed the finish line shrieking with relief, the former soldier raised his arms like a champion and dropped on his knees.

Connor rumbled his way slowly into third place, walked about for a few minutes to prevent the same cramps that seized and swelled the former soldier’s legs and had him on his back moaning in short order, and offered the elven woman half his remaining water before pouring the rest over his own head.

Renth was purring with satisfaction as eighteen other humiliated and humbled recruits staggered and stumbled their way to the end of the six mile run, and Connor’s armour didn’t feel quite so heavy after that.

His responsibilities, on the other hand…

Velanna, An’eth, and Nathaniel arrived home again at Vigil’s Keep an _easy_ month and a half after Connor and the others. As expected, Velanna went a particularly unpleasant colour at the revelation that Connor was now her superior and no amount of apologies or awkward fussing would make her stop being mad about it. An’eth was also scandalized by this because Connor was many, many years Velanna’s junior in the Grey Wardens, not to mention an easy ten years younger. Nobody Circle Mages didn’t just out-rank Dalish _Ha’hren_ out of nowhere, at least not in any Dalish world-view.

Nathaniel stayed plainly and fully out of the discussion, the lucky bastard. He was the only one of the three willing to actually tell Connor what they’d learned in Gwaren. Connor was too scared to ask Velanna, _especially_ after she and Mahanon started having a significant amount of bonding time together to spend being mad at him with. Connor just _knew_ the former Silver Order Captain and the former Lieutenant-ranked Warden were still angry about his change in position: Surana’s favouritism was going to get Connor put in an early, stress-induced grave.

“We found a few of them,” Nathaniel told him a night or two after their return. The senior Warden was enjoying his pipe and a deck of cards with Connor sitting across from him in the mess hall. “Six siblings total, but the poor mother passed a few winters back, Maker Rest Her Soul. One died young, not sure how, and a younger brother is off to Rivain until the winds bring him back as a deck-hand so we couldn’t talk to him. Eldest sister threw a chamber pot at us but the Alienage whispered pretty loudly that her youngest was mage-born too, not sure what became of the child.” Jylan’s niece or nephew was a mage? Connor wanted to know more but there was nothing Nathaniel could tell him.

“The other three?” He asked instead.

“Youngest sister had the look of someone who wanted to know more. Small thing, about Rowan’s age, but she’s contracted as a servant to one of Gwaren’s big merchant families and the Seneschal was a bitter old fool who didn’t want Grey Wardens or elves snooping around the house. Next-eldest girl was heavy with child and demanded to know what good another brother would do her, so we made our apologies and left. Middle brother’s the best bet for any sort of contact: good head on his shoulders, and polite too.”

“Really?” That sounded promising.

“Said he and Jylan were born back-to-back with each other, thick as thieves and nearly twins. Tried to buy us a round of ale but he’s just a clerk’s assistant and I couldn’t put that kind of burden on the man.”

“Any family of his own?” Connor asked, something in him stinging sharply. You couldn’t be a clerk’s assistant unless you could read, so how hard must Jylan’s brother have worked to gain that skill after the Templars had come? Nathaniel shook his head.

“He’s paying most of what he makes to support the pregnant sister, and I think he’s the one who worked out the contract to get the youngest in as a servant. So before you ask: there’s not a chance between the Fade and the Abyss of getting him to make the month-long trek up from Gwaren, or of spoiling what little coin he has on passage by ship to Amaranthine.”

“Jylan makes more than an assistant clerk whose pay is undercut for being elven,” Connor stated. He knew how much Jylan made, he’d been the one to get him to leave Amaranthine city. “If he consents to help his siblings then I can arrange it as long as you give me the brother’s name.”

Nathaniel reached into the inner lining of his comfortable blue tunic, pulled out a fine piece of vellum, and held it out to him between two calloused fingers.

“You’re a good man, Connor.” Rian Ansera, assistant clerk to the Eighth Lion Merchant fleet in their Gwaren port-of-call. Connor didn’t know the merchant fleets well enough to know where the Eighth Lion was from, but Nathaniel told him it was named after the eight Free Marcher trading families that had founded it. One brother worked for the company as a clerk, another as a deck-hand on what was likely one of their ships, and a sister in one of those smaller merchants’ households. This was Jylan’s _family_. “And don’t worry yourself too hard about Velanna. Once you help Jylan with this she’ll calm down and remember it’s the Warden Commander who makes these decisions, not you. I think you’ll do a fine job directing the Mages.”

“Maker, I hope you’re right…”

Jylan took much longer than Connor might have thought to come to a decision on what to do about his newfound family. He could not rationalize leaving Vigil’s Keep for Gwaren, and talked himself through at least eight good, sound, logical reasons why if would be a horrible mistake if he left anyways. For one, he could die if he was on a ship to Gwaren that sank. For another he was unlikely to find another source of employment beyond the Vigil or the Guildsmen, so there was no possibility of him relocating to Gwaren. His siblings, or at least his elder sister, would probably not appreciate his return to the city even if he did go there just to visit. He had no emotional motivation to make the trip anyways.

“I understand that the appropriate response is to commit to such a journey, but I find it both unwise and less productive than remaining within the contact of my employment with Vigil’s Keep.”

“Yes, and I understand that.” Connor told him. “But are you considering writing to them? To Rian, at least?”

“It is pronounced _Ree-an_ , not _Rye-an_.”

“That- I’ll remember that. Are you going to answer my question?”

It took Jylan nearly an hour of silence in the workshop to answer him.

“It would be more appropriate for someone with the proper emotional capacity to make the attempt.” Was what he finally ended up saying after having done no work for the entire length of his silence. His mabari was concerned and had not moved from his side on the workshop floor as he considered the matter.

“They do know you’re Tranquil.” Connor tried to be gentle with the subject. “An’eth and Velanna told them. I don’t think Rian would expect an emotional answer.” He said the brother’s name properly this time.

“He would desire one and I am incapable of performing the task.” Jylan did not speak quickly, did not change his even monotone. “I will not write. It would serve only as a detriment. I will request the Seneschal’s aid in transferring my wages to Rian in Gwaren, and he will see the money appropriately distributed among the others.” Something about the way he said it, flat as it was, hurt. Or maybe it wasn’t the tone and it was just the fact that Jylan said it at all.

“Not _all_ of the money though,” It was invasive and none of his business but he pried _anyways_.

“I do not require monetary compensation for my services to the Vigil.” The question offended Jylan and it didn’t matter if he couldn’t express that fact emotionally, Connor _winced_ because he _knew_ he’d offended him. “I receive objectively better accommodations, food, and leisure within the Vigil than was available within the Guild hall, which was again of a higher quality than our circumstances in the Tower. My wages broken five ways will still provide considerable relief to the circumstances of the Gwaren Alienage.”

“Do you even know their names?” Connor asked and it was wrong of him.

“Yes.” They left the subject alone after that. Connor was the last person in the Vigil with any hope of discussing family and reconciliation and it was another week before Carver or Evie were expected back at the fortress to help him.

It was a relief to him when he bent to his own curiosity and asked Garevel what the result of Jylan’s decision had been. Wrong as it was the Seneschal was very quick to tell him that no, not all of the money was to be sent to Gwaren: a modest portion of it was staying in Amaranthine in Jylan’s name on the ledger. If he died in the employ of the keep then the money would be forwarded to his family, but if he ever decided to retire from the workshop then there would be something left behind for him to live off of. Connor could leave it alone after that, he’d just needed to know Jylan was taken care of. Garevel however still had the last word to give:

“The difference is being made up by his grace.” The Seneschal curled his lips and bit them tight, well aware that Connor had no right to ask after Jylan’s wages, nevermind the _Warden Commander’s_ contributions. “Therefore, technically, Compounder Ansera’s wishes are still being fulfilled: the full sum of his wages is being credited to his brother Rian in Gwaren.”

“I- but he hates Jylan.” Connor didn’t understand why Surana would do that. The difference was no more than a silver or two a month and Connor didn’t need to know what a Warden Commander’s annual pay was: he was an Arl. It was a lot. “I thought because I was the one to bring him here that any difference would be mine to-”

“So did Warden Athras when she came asking yesterday, as she seems to have the same dismissive attitude towards her personal finances. Do tread lightly about this topic with the pair of them, Sergeant: Compounder Ansera gave very explicit written instructions not to allow you _or_ Warden Athras to interfere on this matter.” That did not surprise Connor in the slightest.

“But you’re still telling me this?”

“Because you ought to know what’s going on.” Garevel said simply. “You threatened the Vigil’s Master Thatcher with mage-fire for calling Compounder Ansera an unseemly name, and you’re arguably the more intimidating persona to most people when compared to Warden Athras. Should anything happen to the Ansera family, Warden, I’m quite confident House Guerrin will step in and put a stop to it long before the Warden Commander even realizes you’ve left the keep.” Oh- well, that was a very humbling vote of confidence. It didn’t help that it felt right to him either.

 So Jylan was settled. Or started. Connor didn’t know and he was worried about offending his friend even further so just left the entire matter _alone_. It was Jylan’s family and Jylan would handle it, and Jylan had no pride to interfere with the fact that if he ever needed help he would ask Connor, or An’eth, or the Seneschal, or _someone._ As long as he trusted _someone_ then Connor could sleep at night.

Or he would have slept had Nathaniel not been completely wrong and the matter of Jylan did nothing to improve matters with Velanna. She was still offended about having to come to _Connor_ about matters around the Vigil that had anything to do with magic or the mages, and she had Mahanon there to complain to and rile up, and Connor had never had to manage _people_ before. He did not like this new task and was very afraid of it. He tried to ignore it.

Rule number one of managing people: never, _ever_ , ignore them.

“I… I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” He was in his workshop, where Connor thought he was supposed to be, up to his wrists in a half-butchered dragonling corpse trying to jar its innards before they spoiled, with a pair of angry mages getting in the way and being very frightening. “I want to help, I do, I just don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“A _garden!_ ” Velanna and Mahanon both shouted at him and Connor wished they wouldn’t do that he didn’t like being yelled at please don’t _yell at him_. There had been a lot of awkward and angry preamble to bring this announcement out, and Connor finally moved away to wash his hands, very aware of the likelihood of getting a bolt of lightning to his back or a staff hit on his head.

“Okay. Start again, _please_ ,” he said. Connor finally understood why Garevel and Surana did everything from behind a desk. Desks were safe. Desks guaranteed space between you and the angry person. Or people. His work table was a poor substitute.

Velanna took a deep, tense breath, curling her hands tight and letting the air out in a slow hiss from her nose.

“There is _nowhere_ left in the Vigil that is outdoors, green, and comfortable,” she explained. “When I was here years ago there was a pasture near the walls, but it’s been built over and the trees cut down. The only quiet spaces in the entire fortress are the Chantry and the library.”

“Both of which are indoors,” Connor said, acknowledging the first thing Mahanon had barged into his workshop yelling about. “And one is very hostile towards Dalish meditations.” That was the Chantry, in case anyone was wondering.

“I cannot tolerate riding a mile out of the Vigil every day just to find a place for Andruil,” Mahanon thumped the end of his staff on the floor and Connor tried not to be offended by it. There was no need to be that aggressive and he’d already done enough shouting. “It need not be a wild glade, just someplace with _trees_ and life.”

“A garden,” Connor repeated.

“With _sunlight_.” Velanna hummed angrily. “The yard between the east wing and the stables is perfect.”

“That’s just a nothing space with gravel and some boxes in it,” Connor said, mentally drawing a map of the keep to make sure he knew what space she meant. It was out of the way and very narrow at the back where one of the main towers planted its round foot, making it unsuitable for the horses to canter about on the grass. “Okay, so- and please _don’t yell_ this time. Why do you need me for this? I mean-” _Don’t yell! Do not yell!_ “ _Why_ is it a _mage_ thing? I just want to know why it’s a _mage_ thing and not something you could just go to the Seneschal or the Commander himself about. I mean _you,_ Lavellan, you want someplace to pray and be with your God and-”

“ _Goddess_.” Connor had his hands up _pleading_ for patience from the tight-lipped elf.

“Goddess- right. Andruol. Andju- I’m going to stop trying to say it because I don’t want you to yell at me again.” He was going to get yelled at. “My point is that that’s a Seneschal thing, not a-”

“The Seneschal sent us to the Commander, who sent us to _you_.” If Mahanon clenched his teeth any tighter he’d never open his mouth again. Connor took a quick breath, held it, looked between the two of them, and wished Surana would stop showering him with these bloody favours.

“Would there be any conflict between a Dalish sanctuary having herbs and plants to supply the keep growing in it?”

“No.” Velanna said before Mahanon could answer. “They would honour Syliase and probably make _your_ life easier.” Connor winced at her tone and closed his eyes, hating this.

“If the Warden Commander has bowed out of this issue, Velanna, then I’ll need to have as much as I can carry with me to the Seneschal if the Revered Mother decides she doesn’t like having an Andrastian Fortress accommodate its Dalish occupants.” He didn’t want to condescend he didn’t want to be rude he just didn’t want her to be so _angry_ with him about this. “Garevel is religious, I _was_ pious, and I really, really, do not want to get into a fight with the Revered Mother.”

“So you won’t fight for your mages?” Mahanon said hotly, and Connor opened his eyes with his own heat filling his mouth.

“I’m going to _avoid_ the fight if I can, Warden Lavellan. And I’m going to do that by hitting Garevel with reason after reason after _good damn reason_ why the Vigil needs a garden. What do you need to have for your goddess?” Mahanon’s anger seemed a bit cooler as he stood there, mulling on the question.

“At least one oak tree.” So Connor would try for maybe three and take what he could get. He looked to Velanna next, waiting.

“Privacy. Shrubs or a wall.” He would absolutely argue for a wall, or even a fence, because a hedge would be a simple downgrade if he couldn’t hold and get wood or mortar.

“Kinloch Hold had a garden for the mages to relax and gather in,” Connor explained, surprised by the memory. “Skyhold had one for meditation and religious contemplation near the chantry. I’ll talk to Sephri and see if she can think of anything she’d like to see again. We can make it a safe place for the mages, but it’s still a Dalish thing: what does An’eth’s God ask for? It’s not a lot of space so the more we have sorted out before we start, the better.”

“Dirthamen?” Velanna asked, she looked surprised by the fact that he’d even brought it up. “The shade and privacy should be enough, I think, but I can… Hello? Do you need something?” She was looking at her feet.

Jylan’s mabari, for whatever reason, had come over from under the table and was now sitting attentively at Velanna’s feet looking up at her. The dog, understandably, did not answer the question.

“Okay…” Connor tried to remember where they were going with this. “Oak trees for Andruil-?” Oh, he didn’t get a glare that time he must have said it right. “The shade for Dirthamen-”

The hound barked and stood up, looking at Connor now. Connor met that look, then turned to find Jylan with his eyes. He was sorting elfroot leaves. Correction: he had been sorting elfroot leaves. He was now standing perfectly still with two of said leaves in his hands.

“Dirthamen.” Connor said again, the dog let its tongue roll out and started wiggling its bottom at him. Connor needed a moment, but in the middle of it found himself yelling: “ _You named him after An’eth’s **god!?** ” _Sweet Maker were they-? Tranquil didn’t get _married_ they didn’t fall in _love_ but he’d gone and-!?

“This _smelly_ thing?” Mahanon sounded disgusted and Connor was _scandalized_ by his tone.

“It’s a _mabari!_ ”

The garden, by the way, was an easy task to complete. The Revered Mother inserted herself very firmly into the discussion and Garevel was more offended by her intrusion than swayed by his own piety. Connor didn’t mention el’vhen gods, or Dalish rituals, or the reasons behind the suggested plants written into his proposal. He mentioned how nice it would be having fresh elfroot that didn’t have to be scavenged or watered on Connor’s balcony, how the walls would be able to host trellises of Arbour Blessing, and the poor drainage down the side of the keep could be capitalized on with some work to funnel into a water feature for lotus plants.

Connor mentioned the quiet peace of the garden at Kinloch Hold, and the serenity of Skyhold’s meandering paths. What relief it would be on a mind plagued by demons and the Fade to find mental respite and calm in the middle of such a lively fortress. It would do the Mages a great boon to have a place to physically retreat to, out in the sun or the soft spring rain. Connor was a good Andrastian mage who respected the Circles and his College. He would certainly never do or suggest _anything_ that wouldn’t be _completely_ in step with the Chantry’s teachings.

They broke ground easily with magic and hardy labour, and Connor’s balcony was finally relieved of its leafy burdens as the plants were plugged into the ground and protected by a roughly hewn stone wall. The trees were thin things transplanted from a nearby glade via cart, but Mahanon was quietly pleased with them.

Apparently it was Connor’s garden? Because he was the Apothecary and in charge of the Mages. In that case Connor didn’t hesitate to have lavender and roses from Amaranthine added to the decorations along the garden wall. Mistress Felsi put in an immediate request for the flowers selfishly intruding on the kitchen gardens to find their way into a bed or two in the mage’s garden and Connor consented easily. Daisies, marigolds, and fragrant grasses were moved to make room for more onions and cabbages, and found new life in the quiet corner on the other side of the keep.

Dalish carvings? What Dalish carvings? He didn’t see any Dalish carvings. He didn’t know what the Revered Mother was talking about. Surana didn’t see any Dalish carvings either, he just pointed out that a few seeds of Andraste’s Grace might be nice to see sprout by summer.

He planted a rowan tree in the corner, because he could, and because Rowan immediately took to studying under it in her afternoons. The only thing Connor would not allow in the garden was embrium.

By summer Connor’s day-to-day life looked and felt _far_ differently than it had a year earlier.

He was consistently up and awake a good hour before the first bell, bathed and in either his day-to-day grey summer robe or laced into his battlemage armor. He needed that hour to read because finishing the one great book from Surana had only landed him with a second and third one. Straight reading was hard, but actually casting the spells or at least quiet versions of them made the task much easier.

If he could, and he made the effort for it, he would use the last ten or fifteen minutes of that quiet hour to just sit and calmly spend time with Kindness and Loyalty. He would clear his mind in the pre-dawn calm and just listen to them for a bit, and then with the bell he’d be off.

Jylan would already be at work in the Apothecary workshop when he got there. Dirthamen was always anxious and excited to follow Jylan from the workshop down to the Chanter’s Board and then about the Vigil to deliver the previous day’s requested tonics and supplies. Anything they needed for the day, Jylan would purchase on his walk. With the mabari at his heels Connor never had to worry about his friend coming to any harm.

There was always something that needed to be cut up, cured, pickled, boiled, poached, or otherwise taken care of. Connor would see to some of that but mostly his job now was to field and organize requests, setting priorities for the day that Jylan would oversee without comment or concern. Those who needed healing or care knew to come in the morning and either have a talk with him or place a request for something that could be picked up later or delivered the next morning. It worked quite well.

At noon he would leave the workshop and take his staff out to the courtyard. He was stronger now, and the howling demand for embrium calmed down to a distant whisper that only bothered him sometimes, on certain days. He would spar, practice, or just generally be present and around the other Wardens.

He finally, after far too damned long at this, understood how Evie filled her every day. She was a Captain: she sparred and trained the other Wardens. _She_ was the one who organized the round-robins, kept track of equipment, and made sure the yard was kept clean. He spent time with her and he was so happy for it because it was comfortable and charming and he didn’t have to kiss her as long as he got to watch her smile and laugh and be so, so content.

He knew he was doing better and had stopped being a burden on everyone’s thoughts when Evie could finally stand the idea of Connor sparring against her properly without magic. He bounced so hard off her shield he thought he broke something, but it was a good feeling just the same. If the other mages had some kind of issue they wanted sorted, they usually approached him during these hours.

At any point throughout the day he could be called upon to provide healing or help and never turned away from that duty. By mid-afternoon he would meet Rowan in the new garden and she would decide what they did together. Go riding in fair weather with her horses and dogs, practice magic, read and reflect on histories, whatever she wanted really.

He was thankful he had not sent her to Nevarra. It would have been a terrible mistake.

If he didn’t see Carver in the training yard then Connor was guaranteed to see him at dinner. If Connor somehow went an entire day without seeing either Carver or Evie when they were at home in the Vigil then he gave himself a very simple evening prerogative. Barring a summons from the Warden Commander, Connor was going to see at least one of them before bed.

“Did you just-?”

“Yes.”

“But I-”

“No. You left me waiting all winter and spring, you ass. Evie’s right and I’m done doing things your way.”

“Conno-” Nope, shut up.

Connor held tight to the front of his shirt, pulled his head down again, and kissed his idiot Warden _properly_. No wine, no liquid courage, just simple stubborn willpower. Evie had told him again and again, in both Connor’s bed and her’s, that Carver was not the suave and confident lover he liked to pretend he was. He could flirt and he could fall into bed like a vagrant if he pleased, but simple things like hand-holding and proper kisses? He turned into a Chantry choir boy as soon as it came up.

It took until half-way through that second _‘I’m sick and tired of waiting’_ kiss for Carver to just stop _worrying_ about whatever it was he always choking on and _hug him_ , _kiss him_ \- push him against the wall-? 

Uh-

 _Maker._ He was strong- very strong. Very easy to forge- _ah_ -

Being picked up had not been the idea. Carver had his arms locked hard and tight around his chest and he leaned up and back so Connor’s feet lost the floor, and his lips lost the kiss because _what?_ Oh _shit_.

Connor’s door opened and then shut behind them. They were in his room, Carver’s mouth strong and hot against his neck, then across his throat, and his hands were spread and pushed down his sides. They tried to slip through the belt on his robe and find a way between the panels and open the robe and _undress him_ and- shit. Sex. Carver expected _sex._

‘ _I mean…’_ But his lips were so soft and his mouth so warm and his skin smelled so _nice_ and- ‘ _I guess?’_ If he had to then-? Alright. He’d done worse with less pleasant company. He was safe with Carver and he’d be okay. If he really wanted it then sure, why not? He was supposed to be good at it, wasn’t he? That had been the whole thing that brought him and Evie together and they were affectionate and loving now so it wouldn’t be all that bad.

He’d have to go through it all again with Evie then too, wouldn’t he? It wouldn’t be fair to have sex with one and then not the other. Evie enjoyed it and Connor loved her too. If he could with Carver then he would with her. Alright. Good thing he’d settled this.

Connor let the enchantments on the robe release. Okay. He’d be okay. Carver kissed his lips and he did it again and again, it was nice and Connor liked it, could close his eyes and lean into it. It wasn’t a bad feeling when the robe was opened and Carver pushed it off his shoulders, let it fall. Close was nice. Warm was nice. But silk was thin and he should have let Evie keep the shirt because Carver’s hands swept down his sides again and pulled the edges out where it was tucked into his trousers and- _ugh,_ he really didn’t need to touch him there. Leave his waist alone he didn’t know if he liked that tickle at the base of his spine or not and-

Carver stopped kissing him. Damn it. Connor mouthed for him in the dark and felt his lips again before Carver pulled back. He put his hands on Connor’s hips and stopped moving, stopped going through his clothes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Just get this over with.

“Don’t lie, what’s wrong?”

“I’m nervous, it’s fine.”

“If you tense up any more you’ll pull something.”

“I’ll muscle through it I’m fine.”

“Okay, I’m not Antivan or anything but that’s a _really_ bad approach with this.” Just- _just…_ Carver’s forehead touched his warmly, the bridges of their noses locking. His arms felt much softer when they curled around Connor’s shoulders and back again. Caver kissed his lips again and it was _warm_ and it felt good. “You could try unclenching your hands a little if you want me to believe you.” He wasn’t- oh. Yes, he was. Tight, tense fists and rigid arms and everything in his legs was starting to hurt.

“I’ll get used to it, honest.” He put his hands flat along Carver’s back. Better?

“I’m not sure I want to make you _get used to it_.” Carver’s voice carried disappointment in it and _no_. Don’t be disappointed, don’t get frustrated, _don’t_.

“I love you- I’ll be okay. It’s alright.” Don’t be disappointed, _love him_. Make love to him, _with him_ , whatever! He’d said yes!

“And _I_ ,” Carver took his shoulders, held them firm and then gave him a shake. “-love _you_. Okay and alright aren’t really the words for it. Connor, do you want sex from me?”

“I guess?” _Wrong answer._ “You do, so yes.”

“You _don’t_ , so no.”

“But-” Carver _kissed him_ and he relaxed into it with a sigh.

“Good, you _do_ like that.” He did. He could do _so much_ of that. “We’re going to play a little game, you and I. Lay down.”

“What game?” Connor asked, and he didn’t move from the embrace. Kiss him like that again.

“One I learned in Kirkwall called the _Yes-No_ game.” Carver kissed him, another tender and breathless _yes_. “I tell you what I’m going to do and then I do it. If you like it, and it’s good, and you want it again, you say _yes_. Anything else, and you say no.”

“What if I’m not sure?”

“Then it’s not a yes and that makes it a no.”

“But-”

“I’m going to kiss your mouth again. Hmm?”

“…yes _._ ” Carver did as he’d said, and it was comfortable and sweet and Connor wanted mo- he broke it.

“I’m… going to kiss your lips,” he said, mouth brushing Connor’s as he spoke. “And _then_ I’m going to rudely shove my tongue in your mouth. Thoughts?” Connor laughed stupidly.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“What was that?”

“ _Yes._ ” Ah- his boots didn’t have enough room for his toes to curl.

“Boots and belts off? Both of us, I mean.” Yes. “I’ll do it?” …No. “You do it?”

Every little change and action came with a question. Trousers on or off? Shirts, open or off or untouched? Kiss his scarred eyes? Touch his scarred chest? Let Carver on top of him? It got very scary again because what if he said no to something that wasn’t a big deal? Or he only hesitated because he genuinely didn’t _know_ and-?

“Connor, you can do this magical thing called _change your mind_.” But then he kissed him again _so nicely_ and- “We’re going to stop now and go to sleep.”

“ _Yes.”_

“Okay, then we stop.” And they did. It just. Stopped. It stopped and it went back to Carver just sharing the bed with him and being comfortable and close and it felt _so much better…_ “And next time, the phrase for stop is _‘Get off me, you fat oaf.’_ You can say it at literally any time too.”

“I wouldn’t say that to you…” Connor had one hand over his own eyes, embarrassed by how relieved he felt to be done and still have Carver’s arms around him, skin to warm skin. “I’ll do better next time.”

“So you’ll tell me sooner when I start being a creep? Good. I’d appreciate the advanced warning: I told you I always fuck up things the first time.”

“ _No,_ I mean-”

“I’m ignoring what you meant.” Carver brushed a finger down and across Connor’s chin, tilting his face closer. The kiss in the dark made him close his eyes and feel calm again. “I’m doing just fine after a winter and spring spent without making you unhappy, you magi prick. The Maker gave me two hands and an imagination for a reason.”

“I… you’re not serious.”

“I’m as serious as you think I am.” It was so dark in the room he could barely see Carver’s face, but he still heard that stupid grin somehow. “You would not _believe_ the _incredible_ things the mind can-” Connor pulled the pillow out from under his head and tried to cram the entire thing into his lover’s mouth. Stop. Just. Stop.

“Go to sleep.” He pulled the pillow away when Carver stopped humming words through it.

“Come to think of it, I wonder if Evie’s done the same-” He replaced the pillow. This was where Connor had pledged his heart.

“I just wanted kisses.” He had to actually sit across Carver’s stomach to keep the lewd comments smothered, and the position was not lost on him. Not the warmth and movement of Carver’s waist, not the reach and flex of his arms, not Carver’s strong hands creeping up along his thighs- “Why do you have to spoil things like this?” _Stop that_.

“You make it _so easy…”_

“Fall asleep before I go crawling into Evie’s bed instead.”

“Ooh, threesome?” Connor climbed away and then kicked him off the bed. He did not let Carver back up again until he got an apology and several kisses for his trouble. Flattery, and the oft-repeated _‘I love you’_ with many creative embellishments was a great help to Carver.

Between Connor’s work, his responsibilities, and his relationships… Everything at the Vigil just kept settling further and further into a comfortable, happy cycle. The only thing missing now was a set of orders that would carry him away for a few weeks and then home again.

If Connor was going to be summoned by the Warden Commander then it would happen in the late evening. It was almost always announced with enough warning to keep Connor from getting crunched between two obligations. The visits increased from once every few weeks to at least twice a week, and while this would have once bothered him very much, Connor was used to it.

The words stopped scaring him after a bit because it felt normal and obvious to have Surana’s attention now. He was the favourite. He had Surana’s patronage, his mentorship: not really insults if they were true. Yes, Surana favoured him, but the only other Circle Mage in the entire keep was Sephri and she loudly and fully decried anything to do with her time in the Chantry’s hold. The only other Spirit Healer was Velanna, who by her own admission had not felt the companionship of her spirit since her ordeal in the Deep Roads. Connor filled a gap the Warden Commander had left open for many years, and by mid-summer he was feeling better about that fact.

Connor realized he was fully at peace with it when he was familiar enough with Commander Surana’s stoic attitude to notice when it changed. The Commander left Vigil’s Keep to attend the Summer Landsmeet in Denerim and returned a few weeks later looking shattered. Well, shattered for Surana at least.

Had the Hero of Ferelden been a normal person then Connor, Rowan, or Zevran might at some point have found him curled up under his desk sobbing with a half-empty bottle of wine in his hand. Had he been an emotionally vulnerable sort of officer, he might have rambled inappropriately through a toast or a speech and then broken down horribly in the middle. Had he possessed even a few ounces less self-control as an Archmage, a sad little rain cloud would have conjured itself and followed him around the keep.

Thank Blessed Andraste Soren Surana was none of those things, because the distress he _did_ let show was hard enough to deal with.

The Suranan equivalent of drunk and crying under his desk was when Connor answered his summons and found the Hero of Ferelden sort-of dressed but very much still wearing the same thing he’d slept in the night before. He’d just thrown a clean robe overtop of the linens and done no more. He wasn’t actually intoxicated, he was just soft-spoken, seemed to lose his train of thought every few minutes, and finally admitted he couldn’t remember what he’d wanted to talk to Connor about and told him to please take over a few of Rowan’s lessons until he felt more like himself again. Connor was very aware of the untouched platter of summer fruits sitting on the table when he left.

He offered the Commander a soothing mixture of herbs to help him sleep and feel calm again, and rather than refuse Surana just told him it couldn’t hurt. Jasmine blossoms, shredded mint, and a touch of honey didn’t do much but it was still a gesture Connor found important.

Zevran took Surana’s low mood particularly hard, and when the melancholy didn’t fade he started taking more direct action.

“You are _allowed_ to miss him.” The Assassin came stomping into Surana’s laboratory one evening and declared this boldly in front of Connor, who abruptly forgot what he was doing because what in Andraste’s Name was this.

“I do miss him: that was never in question.” What question? Surana missed who?

“Yes but I mean you’re allowed to talk about it.”

“It has been talked to death already.”

“In Denerim, but not here.”

“Connor, hold the flame steady if you please.” Surana ignored his friend and went back to adding minute pinches of special salts and alchemical compounds to the flask of darkspawn and wolf’s blood simmering over Connor’s mage fire.

Connor’s twice-a-week visits were only partially about his own magic now. Surana had been trying for years to purge the Darkspawn taint from blood. He was seeking out a cure to the condition itself so that instead of a violent death at the end of their Calling, the Grey Wardens could retire with dignity when their bodies could sustain the burden no more. It was a noble vocation, but difficult, and complicated by Surana’s own morals.

A rot-laden tablet of some ancient design pulled from the heart of the deep roads was laid out on the table for Surana to squint at and try to read. Connor had helped him decode some of it, but the bits of Ancient Tevene and Old Dwarven and what must have been unbroken El’vhen meshed together in a mind-bending weave of _that’s-not-how-this-conjugates._ They didn’t even know how old it was, but it had the words for _blood_ , _taint_ , and _purge_ on it and the last word wasn’t associated with any negatives.

It wasn’t blood magic in the sense of taking a person’s blood and using the life-energy within it to cast magic. But it was blood magic in that it was magic that involved blood. Surana strictly refused to bleed himself, Connor, Zevran, or any other living or dead person to help his own research, because that would land them firmly and unabashedly in _blood magic_ territory. He used animal blood and made sure the beasts were butchered before they were bled: taking only what would have been drained and thrown out anyways.

That bit about ‘ _of course I miss him_ ’ counted as a normal person inappropriately making a toast about family and then bursting into tears. Surana let himself name the feeling, but not discuss why it was there.

The sad little rain cloud was the fact that Surana did in fact look _sad_. Connor heard it twice before he realized his Commander kept _sighing_ in private. His sadness reminded Connor of the time Rowan dropped her honey cake off her saddle while out riding with him: not prepared to cry over the matter, but distressed just the same.

Connor didn’t go running to Zevran in a panic. He didn’t try to avoid his evenings with the Commander. He didn’t do anything stupid at all, actually. He just asked him what was wrong.

“My son has been sent to squire with His Majesty King Alistair.” Surana didn’t even hesitate to answer, but his voice was heavy and tired. “It is a good thing for him and no doubt good for Alistair too. His mother did not take the announcement as poorly as I’d expected she would. In truth, Connor, nothing is wrong.”

“But you still miss him, your son?” Of course he missed him: Zevran had practically trumpeted the fact for Connor’s listening pleasure. Surana just sighed, a small thing. But that sound was still worse than if Nathaniel had thrown himself on the ground wailing over his nephew Thomas’ own departure for Bann Derren’s holds a fortnight earlier.

“This is too many rooms for two people.” The Commander explained in a dull, disappointed way. “It’s too quiet in the evenings.”

“I suppose it won’t be much help if I’m ever sent from the Vigil again, will it?” Connor tried to put the words out in a way that didn’t outright dig at the fact that he had been home for months and had never heard a whisper about him ever leaving the fortress as a Grey Warden. He tried. He failed. He timed his complaint badly but couldn’t take it back.

Surana cracked a smile, levelled a look at him which rebuked the complaint, then closed his eyes and nodded.

“You _are_ strong enough to do the Order’s work again, Connor.” Then-? Oh please, had he only been waiting for Connor to challenge him again? Another rotten little game of his? “If she would only stop delaying, then you would be on your way already.”

“I-? She, sir?”

“You’ll see, Warden.”

He didn’t right away. It was very hard to understand Surana sometimes, certainly much easier than a year and a bit ago, but still hard. Honestly nothing was as hard as thinking back on the time Connor had gone running foolishly into a landslide-churned night and started throwing magic he’d barely known at monsters very well-equipped to eat him alive. That had been very stupid of him, very reckless, and yet…

And yet if he stopped for a moment; in his room; in his workshop; in their garden; atop the battlements; or in the heart of the chattering, clanking, hawking, yelling, running, laughing, noise upon noise and actions upon duties and chores and reminders and _everything else_ Vigil’s Keep stood for in a day… If Connor stopped and he listened and he let himself step _away_ from all of that for just a few seconds.

 _‘I’m home_.’

And this was how it was meant to be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue on Friday! Leave a comment below!


	53. Epilogue

 

The mistake Connor sometimes made when he spoke to Surana was that he would forget things. Not every little tiny thing the Warden Commander ever said to him felt like it deserved automatic entry into his long-term memory anymore. This wasn’t Skyhold, it was Vigil’s Keep, and Connor had learned to let things go a little.

Sadly, he chose the wrong thing to ignore.

 _‘You’ll see, Warden.’_ See what, exactly, sir? He really ought to have followed up more on that.

Connor did see. Not right away. But eventually, yes, Connor saw what Surana was talking about. But first he had to hear it:

“ _Templars!!_ ” He heard it and his heart tried to squeeze and burst at the same time, the summer heat and light holding him as snug and close as Evie’s arms where he’d been asleep.

He’d slept in: it was the weekly day of prayer and Connor did not go to the Chantry with Carver on these mornings, he stayed in bed with Evie. He was in bed, with her, hand stroking down her bare arm and her sleeping head resting on his scarred shoulder. Skin to skin above the waist was so nice in the warm weather with only the twist of her soft sheets to cover them. He had no intention of moving for many more hours, at least not before one of them got hungry.

 _“Guerrin! GUERRIN! Sergeant, get up! There are **Templars** in Vigil’s-_ ” Sephri’s screaming and pounding on the door scared him so badly Connor got lost in the light and felt sucked down by the bed. Evie was no more mobile than he was and flailed slow and confused trying to sit up. Her words were slurred between languages and her thick hair sat lopsided from sleeping on him in the heat.

They freed themselves from the bed and Connor almost tripped himself getting to the door to answer Sephri. Evie grabbed her shield without thought for sword or shirt, and was ready to break down her own bedroom door before Connor got it open.

“ _Guerrin!_ ” Sephri wasn’t screaming his name in anger, she was howling it because she was _scared_. She had been shifted between Starkhaven and Kirkwall Circles before the war. She’d been there when the Grand Cleric had been murdered, when the Right of Annulment had been brought down on the Gallows, when Hawke’s sister had risked everything to save lives. She fell on him in terror and Evie checked the hall, then shut the door and immediately went to dress and arm herself properly.

“Talk- Sephri, _words_.” Connor pleaded with the trembling woman. “Start from the beginning.”

“They’re in the courtyard, they’re _here_ -”

“How many?” Surana would not stand for Templars in his fortress, he was master here and no simple melancholy would stop him from protecting his own.

“I don’t know- there was a carriage. But their _shields_ -” There was no noise of fighting from the open balcony door and Connor could feel no magic raging through the keep. “They’re here to rape us and kill us and-”

“Sephri _no_.” He got his hands on her shoulders. He gave her a hard _shake_. “You are a _Grey Warden_ and no Templar will touch you without going through me first.”

“I’ll crush the head of the first one to try that.” Evie stated in a black voice, finding no time for silverite spaulds or plates as she deftly laced the hardened leather of her vambraces. She was dressed now and wore the dark shell of a leather breastplate belted and cinched around her waist. Her deep, rich dark eyes were not quiet the proper colour, but she wasn’t pulling too hard on the taint just yet. “I was enjoying my morning, Connor. If this is not a false alarm, then I want blood to make up for it. Go arm yourself.” Maker, he loved her.

He dressed as fast as he ever had and grabbed his staff from his room with Sephri outright refusing to leave his shadow. He tried to send her after his sister and Jylan just to make _certain_ nothing happened, but she trembled too hard at the suggestion. Connor had to let it go. He would see these Templars for himself and then send Evie to protect Rowan if he had to.

“Oh- well that was quick.” They ran into Sigrun immediately, and she gave a distracted gesture over her shoulder. “Commander just told me to come get you, Guerrin.”

“Why are there Templars in Vigil’s Keep?” He asked outright.

“They’re the entourage for whoever just paraded through our gates.” Sigrun turned and quickly started leading them through the Keep. “Six-horse carriage, all black with more white ribbons than I’ve seen on most pin-wheels. _Really pretty_ carriage, looks like it rumbled right out of the Diamond Quarter in Orzammar. Big honour guard too, like, not _royal_ big but I think a dozen of the guys with the burning sword?”

“Lady Seeker Pentaghast?” Connor asked, but why would the leader of the Seekers of Truth be in _Vigil’s Keep_ of all places? And since when did she ride with ribbons and a gilded carriage?

“She a mage?” Sigrun asked back. “It was definitely a magic lady. _Real_ pretty, I mean-” What mage in their _right mind_ would survive the war with the Templars and then travel around with a _dozen_ of them? Connor had respected them in the Circles, he still understood the need _for them_ , but why would anyone travel the open road alone with them?

“Do either of you know where Velanna and Mahanon are? Sephri?”

“In the garden, probably.” Sephri’s answer was weak.

“Go to them, and _stay there_.” Connor told her. “If the Templars are guests then we can’t just get rid of them, but I’m a lot less scared of them than you are. No matter what you do, just stay with _other people_.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” She was scared but she left at the next corner, and they were joined by Carver who was out-of-breath coming up the flight of stairs after that.

“Told you you ought to come to prayer,” was the first thing he managed to say. “Who is she? Someone important no doubt.”

“Why are you asking me?” Connor was thankful this was no attack, but still too stressed for games. “I don’t even know what’s going on.”

“ _De Fer?_ Enchanter De Fer? That’s the name I got from one of her Templars.” Maker’s Breath he’d just walked up and _asked them?_ “I’m a Grey Warden and not a mage, of course I can talk to Templars.” But wait…

“Did they say Enchanter or _First Enchanter?_ ” Connor asked. He knew that name. He knew that name _very well_. “First Enchanter of Montsimmard? _Vivienne De Fer_ is _here?_ ” His fear vanished. He wasn’t afraid of this. Of _course_ Madame De Fer would travel with a Templar honour guard. They were probably more afraid of _her_ than the other way around!

“Oh good, you do know her.” Carver said with a smile. Evie let the taint go and blinked her eyes a few times, then set a comforting hand on his arm.

“No threat then?” She asked. No, no threat. Well, _less threat_.

“I know her the way a stray cat knows a lion.” Connor admitted to both of them, and Sigrun too since she had stopped and was listening. “Maker, I had the _worst_ crush on her at Skyhold.”

“You _what?_ ” Oh- was that… Was this not something Connor was supposed to admit? Carver looked stunned, and Evie was outright offended.

“I remember her too.” She said, aghast. “Proud and vicious woman, political from head to toe.”

“I said I had a crush on her, not that I ever did anything except feel very intimidated just standing across the fortress from her.”

“She is _really pretty_.” Sigrun stated helpfully.

“ _Thank you._ ” Connor told her, and he meant it.

First Enchanter Vivienne was very, _very beautiful._ Connor should have thrown many different words in front of that statement but he was a weak man and that was okay. She wore silks and jewels with the same comfort and grace Evie had in her full armour and swinging her shield. She was as smoothly spoken and clever as Surana but many, many times more charming about it- not that Connor had ever actually watched Surana try to charm someone, but the point stood. Her magic was something recalled with awe and wielded with the kind of poise you found in fine Orlesian paintings.

Connor’s suggestion that he felt less threatened knowing it was First Enchanter De Fer in the keep versus some other random Templar-totting somebody was recanted as soon as he remembered where Sigrun was leading him. To Surana’s throne room. To the place where First Enchanter De Fer was. He was going to be in the same room as the Countess of Iron and _oh Maker **no** -!_

“Lady Vivienne, may I proudly present Sergeant of the Grey Connor Guerrin of Amaranthine, Apothecary and Healer of Vigil’s Keep, Officer of the Fereldan Grey Magi, Companion of Kindness and Loyalty, Judicator of House Guerrin, Champion of House Surana, and Mage of our proud College.” Do. Not. Sit. On. That. Throne. And. Smile. At. Him. Like. That. _Sir_.

“Your lovingly coifed protégé, my lord.” It was just the three of them in the room, even her Templars had filed out to give the mages peace. Lady Vivienne’s white heeled boots clicked so smooth and crisp over the flagstones as she approached him. Her bone-white staff held a crystal that looked like a fist-sized diamond. Silver coat-tails and towering horned headdress stark against her dark and glowing skin. Proud jaw with her chin tilted up and thick lips tinged with humour.  “I have read so _much_ to his credit, yet you did _neglect_ to mention his stature, your grace. This is not a sickly man, not at _all_.” She was circling him, her heels leading her long legs in a tight circle behind and around him.

If this was how Connor died then he knew he’d had a good run and this was okay.

“I did not expect the Grand Chancellor of our noble college to entangle you for so long in Cumberland.” Surana spoke easily and with so much smug amusement from his throne that Connor was very very very not happy with him. Zevran was tucked into the shadow behind the throne and was watching Connor’s appraisal with great interest. “But what matters is that you’re here _now_ , my lady, and I am optimistic about what your visit will yield. He is bound to not one beneficent spirit, but _two_.”

“You hear by his voice how put _upon_ I am by your Lord, don’t you, my dear?” Aha- oh, hahah, oh no she was talking to _Connor_ now. She was looking at him. Oh Maker. She was standing in front of him. That was the burn of his heart imploding from stress. “To think we had such a _gem_ hiding in those filthy tents at Skyhold. The Wardens truly are masters of turning curs into pure-breds.” Um- don’t… don’t slight the Wardens like that in front of him.

Lady Vivienne gasped, touched a jeweled hand to her breast, and twisted to look at Surana.

“There is _spunk_ in him.” She marvelled.

“Spunk is reserved for Apprentices, my lady.” Surana told her, robed in gold and the silverite body of his armour. He leaned forward atop his throne and placed his elbows on his knees, his staff resting against the high wooden chair and quiet. He clasped his hands briefly, then gestured to Connor with his gloved fingers. “What you see is the mettle of an Archmage.”

Son of a bitch, Surana.

“Is it?” Lady Vivienne soured all over. She clicked her tongue at Connor, lifted her staff comfortably, and took two sharp steps away from him. She lobbed the weapon gracefully into the air where a web of crystalline magic captured and held it, a radiating beacon of power. The crimson fire of the hall’s hearths and braziers went sparkling white under her influence “We shall _see_. Ready yourself, my dear. We shall put your master’s boasts to the test.” Connor found his voice.

“Should your Radiance not rest yourself first, after such a long and tedious journey from Cumberland?” She _had_ just arrived in the Vigil not an hour ago.

Lady Vivienne’s magic made the serpentstone head of Connor’s staff shatter in his own grip. His third staff in two damn years.

“No.”

Well _fuck you too,_ lady.

* * *

 

When your entire life was confined to a tower with only one door in or out, that tiny world view had a way of distorting and elongating itself. Soren well and truly understood that Kinloch Hold had been far taller than wide, and he’d doubtless lost a year of his life just climbing its too-many stairs, but there were still times when he remembered the Circle and felt convinced the tower had been larger than Vigil’s Keep, Skyhold, and Fort Drakkon all put together.

The transition from Apprentice to Mage had been one based purely on ability. You were a capable mage if you could survive the Harrowing. You were no longer to be doubted so rigorously and intensely. You had proof, quantified by your own still-beating heart, that you were no simple-minded nothing ready to fall on the Tranquil Brand or at the feet of the first demon to hound your sleep.

To move from Mage to Enchanter had been based on merit and self-discipline. You had to achieve _something_ to obtain the rank of Enchanter: create a dependable and of course _useful_ sort of spell; write a book about something relevant; earn commendations serving the Chantry or the Crown as a battlemage or Healer; complete a study or significant research into a subject with a suitable patron.

Enchanters had been given the option of joining Fraternities, the brotherhoods and associations that had transcended Circle life. Most travelling the majority if Circle Mages had ever expected to enjoy had been due to their Fraternity ties.

Enchanters had graduated to Senior Enchanters as the positions became available. Kinloch Hold had held twelve Senior Enchanter seats, and this number could not have changed without the authority of the Grand Enchanter and a vote at the College of Enchanters in Cumberland. Each Senior Enchanter had been worth one vote, so it was understandable that without serious reason no other Circle would let its votes contribute to another Circle amassing more seats.

Senior Enchanters had elected First Enchanters within their Circles, again, as positions opened up. First Enchanters were the pool the Grand Enchanter was elected from when, of course, the current holder of the title decided to die.

So where, in this neat and tidy little pyramid, did the term _Archmage_ factor in?

Soren had led the combined armies at the Battle of Denerim against the Archdemon, nearly died atop Fort Drakkon if not for Morrigan’s spell, and after being laid up in bed for several dizzying days he had leapt head-first into the same drunken carousing that had blurred everyone else’s memory of the event. After the celebrations and Alistair’s marriage and coronation, Soren had spent weeks at a time out in the mud and rain of the Ferelden autumn cutting away Darkspawn stragglers and putting down the final flames of Loghain’s wretched revolt.

He had also, as a matter of curtesy and warry concern, returned to the Circle. Once a Circle Mage, always a Circle Mage, and the envoy from Weisshaupt Fortress promoting him from Warden Ensign to Warden _Commander_ had still been very far off and quietly unknown. For an _El’vhen_ mage, Warden or no, Hero or not, it had been an uncertain time. He had been the only proper Grey Warden left in all of Ferelden. Anything could have happened to him and Weisshaupt would have had no way of knowing or helping.

He’d returned to Kinloch Hold without Zevran, who had departed to Antiva. Without Morrigan, who had flatly left him and run off into the smoke of a burning city. Without Sten, who had returned to Par Vollen. Without Alistair, who was hopelessly tied up in Denerim. Without Leliana, who had returned to Orlais. Without Oghren, who had remained in the Fereldan Army and reunited with Felsi. Without Shale, who had departed for the Tevinter Imperium. He even went without _Tagar,_ because Alistair had insisted his hound had earned a break and deserved to do some _good work_ in the Royal Kennels. Soren returned to Kinloch Hold with a company of hardy but impersonal soldiers simply following the Hero of Ferelden home on the King’s orders.

It had not helped matters at all that Irving had not made Soren’s return very _welcoming_ either. The space and bed that had been made his for only a few short nights after his Harrowing had been decidedly _reassigned_. He’d been hosted in the guest chambers not far from Irving’s office, and referred to exclusively as Warden Surana or Hero by every person he encountered, Templar or Chantry or Mage. When he dined with Irving it was to talk exclusively of magic and the Blight, never his place within the Circle, or what he expected to do with himself now that the Blight was quelled and there was no Fereldan Grey Warden Order for him to run off with.

Even Wynne, the one person he held out hope for having _some_ unguarded peace with despite their turbulent relationship during the Blight, was unavailable. Present, yes, but _busy_ with her duties as Senior Enchanter, helping settle and organize the mages after the Blight and the massacre, and readily preparing for her own departure to join Shale in Tevinter.

The most stressful three days of his life had passed in a Tower that was supposed to be his home but had no place for him anymore, until finally: he was summoned.

Where else but to the Harrowing Chamber?

For what other purpose, but to stand there for _three continuous hours_ and speak before the Senior Enchanters? He had stood there and answered questions, explained theories and compositions that had _baffled_ him. No talk of Darkspawn, or Archdemons, or his own survival atop Fort Drakkon, no. Instead Wynne had drilled him mercilessly on the correct alignment and description and purpose of _every spirit-bound sigil_ he had ever laid eyes on.

So many Senior Enchanters had died between Uldred and the Blight that the chamber’s twelve spots had hosted only the remaining seven, plus Irving.

Three hours with no idea what in Andraste’s Name he was even _doing_ in the Harrowing chamber. No clue what _any_ of them were talking about or the point in them digging through every scrap of magical knowledge filed away in his mind. And then they’d made it _worse_.

The sigil that erupted under his feet had blinded him, raced pain through his skin and forced the mana in his body to _pour_ from his mouth and nose until he staggered free of it. A spell had grabbed his staff and _flipped_ backwards, but Soren in his blindness had been stubborn and his staff was _his_ and he’d refused to relinquish it. Rather than stand his ground against the assault however, he’d lost the floor, done a complete flip, and _slammed_ face down on the hard tiles with enough force to bruise his knees and crush the next breath from his lungs.

The taint had _flooded_ through him. The memory wasn’t clear. From flat on the floor to up on his knees, arms spread and hands clutching the opposite ends of his howling staff. Magic chaining and spilling from his hands fast and livid. Confusion turned to frustration. Fear became pride. Betrayal became outright _indignation_.

“An Archmage must not simply be _knowledgeable_ of magic, but astonishingly-” Soren had not _listened_ to First Enchanter Irving’s lecture, he’d filled the chamber with enough searing rage to force the attacking mages to hide behind barriers and healing marks. His blood had _burned_ and an aura of unspoken magical knowledge had opened in his mind, ushering forth the strength and skill from his raw will to draw the sword at his belt without hesitation.

He’d speared the sword down through one of the Enchanter’s robes, sparing his legs by inches, and back-handed the man to the floor. Wynne had approached him with her hand raised and words falling deaf at his feet. Soren had _chosen_ not to strike her down, not out of respect, or friendship, or that mutual something of two healers and battlemages who had travelled together, but from the blindsiding need to know _why_.

“Calm yourself-”

“ _TELL ME!_ ” Why- _why?_ Why would they attack him? _Why?_

“Soren-” Wynne’s staff locked with his, Soren’s knuckles white around the haft and his jaw clenched so hard it hurt. Magic had burned the floor and given the air a horrible metallic taste, the taint clawing through his body and the memories of a long-forgotten spirit bleeding strength down his arms and legs, stitching will into brute power.

Duty, separated from him by the veil but still close enough to bear witness, had _howled_ in indignation and heartache that echoed and amplified Soren’s own pain. _Why?_

Someone else in the room threw a spell at his back and burned him badly, and then the sting of lightning coiled around his heart and tried to rip through it. He’d rebuked the spell and felt the chamber open with light again, his magic spiralling hard and raw to stave off the attacks.

“ _This was my home!”_ And he’d broken the lock with Wynne, let the taint have its violent way and clobbered her down with the haft of his weapon. He’d turned, lifted the crystal on the end of his staff and caught Irving’s lightning, wrestling the spell down and torn it apart from the inside. He found the single thread of will escaping like spider-silk in a breeze and seized it, followed it back to its source, and-

  _“My **home**!_ ”

-and shattered the head of the First Enchanter’s staff.

Nearly twelve years later now, yes, Soren understood what had happened and why the Circle had taken that path with him. To become an Archmage was a lot like becoming a Mage: a test you knew nothing about going in, and knew not when it would arrive. The Senior Enchanters would test their candidate thoroughly and without mercy, trying to break their focus and find the edge of their skills and knowledge. Then they would attack, or in some cases the fighting would come first just to see if knowledge and application could mesh as thoroughly as they needed to.

An Archmage was not an Enchanter entangled in Circle politics and fraternities and research. An Archmage was a Mage who commanded respect and acknowledgement through the sheer force of their magic. Archmages could vote alongside Senior Enchanters and join a Fraternity if they chose to, but few ever did. Like many Apprentices and the Harrowing, most Mages died in the trial-by-fire that made them Archmages.

Soren’s Archmage Trial had been poorly timed, and eventually even Irving had come to see the truth that had Wynne realized in the moments before the magic calmed. To blindly and without provocation attack a Grey Warden was ill-advised at the best of times, but Soren had not been ready. Oh, he’d passed of course, but he had not been ready.

The first woman he’d really and honestly come to love in his life had abandoned him moments after his soul was nearly torn to shreds by the Archdemon. He had slain the nightmare of their generation atop a tower where he had been tortured only weeks before. His friends had not, per-sey, _abandoned_ him since then, but Soren had been alone and isolated in the only place he’d ever been conditioned to think of as his home. And then that home had attacked him. Outright. For no immediately understood or recognizable reason, just raised their staves and attacked…

He had not even had the chance to finally resolve the last traces of Jowan and Lily’s terrible fate with Irving. He still had not had the chance to ask if any traces or belongings of Eadric’s had survived Uldred’s Massacre. No one had let him ask or had told him what would become of his freedom with the Grey Wardens or his place within the Circle hierarchy. He had been raised expecting to join the politics and climb and claw his way up to Irving’s position- what of that dream now?

His rampage had brought Templars into the Harrowing chamber, and only Irving’s modest chatter had sent them away again. Soren had been attacked, betrayed, and then given a pat on the back and told _good job_ by the mages around him. He’d survived the congratulations and good cheer with just enough grace to escape back to the guest rooms, lock the door, ward the room, and scream.

And scream.

And just _scream_ until it stopped hurting so much. It was just enough for him to feign calm he felt the Templars pulling apart his spells because the magic was suspicious to them.

Soren had taken his honours, kissed Irving’s ring and bade Wynne a warm farewell, and then resolved never to set foot in Kinloch Hold again. He’d broken that vow a few years later for Irving’s funeral, but on that cold spring day with nothing to show for his journey home except a gaping hole in his heart, Soren had already put together a rough idea of the over-land route to Weisshaupt. He’d had every intention of riding to Denerim, making his goodbyes and well-wishes to Alistair, and then taking the first ship bound for anywhere near the Anderfels.

He’d lost Morrigan and the Circle and everyone else who mattered had found their calling to someplace far, far away from him. So he would go to Weisshaupt Fortress and the Grey Wardens and that would be his decision.

Instead, he’d arrived in Denerim and found the Arling of Amaranthine and Command of the Ferelden Grey Wardens waiting for him.

Twelve years later and faced with a young mage whose talents were not the _same_ as his, but clearly ran just as deep and intricately, Soren would _not_ allow Connor to go through the same trauma. The Trial was important just like the Harrowing, yes, but it didn’t have to come with the same sudden betrayal and broken trust. Connor needed to formally prove himself capable of wearing the title and earning the respect it granted, but he didn’t have to die for it either.

Soren called Vivienne because he trusted her with this. He was not foolish enough to trust someone like her with _much,_ but an Archmage Trial fell neatly into her array of skills, and her pride was enough like his that granting her the glory of Connor’s promotion had pleased her greatly. She was a First Enchanter and did not _require_ a room full of Senior Enchanters to vet her decision. No Archmage titles had been formally granted since the dissolution of the Circles anyways, but she alluded heavily to the fact that that would soon change in Cumberland. As it had been with the Skyhold Harrowings, Soren petitioned her to let Connor Guerrin be the first.

Soren had Connor armed and armoured as an Archmage before she even arrived. Soren made sure he was practiced and studied hard for the questions Vivienne would bombard him with. When she finally arrived he impressed upon her the importance of letting the young mage know what in _Andraste’s Name_ was happening to him before it really started.

“I will not attack him,” he told her.

“You are _soft_ on the boy, m’lord.”

“No, First Enchanter. I am his commanding officer here within the Grey Wardens and I will not raise arms against my own Warden.” Connor’s loyalty did not need to be harassed like that, it would either break or put severe strain on his bond with the spirit by the same name. Let him face that trauma when his loyalties _needed_ to be broken, not now for the sake of a promotion.

“Have it your way, should I do something _marvellous_ to warn him of the impending clash?”

“Yes.”

So she’d destroyed Connor’s staff. Maker’s Mercy, Vivienne, that was not what he’d meant- but at least it had made matters clear to Connor.

The incredible damage done to Soren’s throne room was his own fault. He accepted the ridicule and the blame from Garevel when the poor man came in after the worst of the thunder and ice had calmed down. Yes, the braziers had all melted and fallen to the floor in piles of twisted metal. Yes, the hearthstones were cracked. Yes, Soren’s throne was a pile of smouldering splinters. All his fault: he should have made them fight outside or on the open battlements instead.

Could have, should have, would have, it didn’t matter. Connor’s scarred eyes were still radiating blue light and his entire body was visibly twisted with the splintering effects of the taint when Vivienne transitioned smoothly from trying to blow him to pieces to testing his understanding of magical principles. He did not escape the conflict with her unscathed, but was too proud to use his own magic to heal himself when Vivienne prompted it.

“What a rude little thing you are,” Vivienne disliked his attitude intensely. Soren was _delighted_. “The Nineth principle of Etrantum’s Law is-”

“A misnomer!” He bit back, stubbornly holding the warped body of his staff. “There is no Nineth Principle because Etrantum was so in love with the number eight that right before he died the Maker Whispered _‘I now pronounce you Mage and Numerical value, you may sod off together’_.”

“And how did you come to such a crass assessment of one of the most brilliant minds of the Steel Age?” Vivienne stubbornly pushed on.

“Because this _monstrosity,_ ” Connor had to put his staff down now, because without the foci the weapon had no ability to stand on its own or hover just beyond his grasp. He put it down and passed his hands over each other, bands of light twisting and rotating at a furious pace. When his arms came out, the space between himself and Vivienne became a wild curtain of swiftly oriented lines and images. “Is eight times the eighth cardinal value, with _eighty-eight_ of these maddening little pentagrams overlapping along the outside. It is a _nightmare_.”

“And its purpose is?”

This went on for several hours until, at last, Archmage Guerrin was dismissed.

Soren gave him a few days to calm down before presenting him with the final pieces of his armour. Dragon hide Archmage gloves with gold embossing for four of his primary spells: thunder, ice, barrier, and healing. Connor spent a very long time just looking at the gloves after murmuring his thanks for them, and after a few soft minutes Soren filled the gap.

“Going from Apprentice to Archmage in a little over a year is quite the jump, isn’t it, Warden?”

“You can’t imagine it, sir…” He made the comment so faithfully and quiet that Soren just let the words hang in the air. Connor noticed the pause and looked at him, but didn’t make the connection.

“I can’t?” Soren prompted, and then watched Connor’s scarred eyes widen all the way.

“I- I forgot that you-” His Harrowing and his joining had only been a few weeks apart, much like Connor’s.

“I was younger than you are now when the Blight began.” And then a year and some months later, he’d been granted the mantle of an Archmage. Again, much like Connor.

“Which is frightening enough to consider,” the younger mage was saying. “But it makes plenty of sense since that was your nightmare.”

“Excuse me?” Soren didn’t say it reproachfully, he just wasn’t sure of what he’d heard.

“The Archdemon in the Fade, sir.” Connor clarified, sort of. “You were the greatest threat to the Nightmare and the only one who would have known what Urthemiel looked like up-close. Corypheus’ dragon was blighted, but not a real Archdemon.”

“You forget that Constable Oghren was with me at Fort Drakon,” Soren told him for the sake of having words in his mouth.

“His nightmare was about his family…” And about something else that Connor had tact enough to keep to himself. “If I’ve misspoken, Commander, then I apologize for it. I shouldn’t go making assumptions like that about people or demons.”

“You shouldn’t, no.” It was a sensible thing to assume however, and had they not been quite alone in his office then Soren probably would have let the topic die with that comment. “Make no mistake, Warden, I was as frightened as I’ve ever been at the Battle of Denerim. It was, without embellishment, terrifying.” Fear had caused foolish mistakes with his spell-casting and without the help of the soldiers he had been meant to lead, he would have certainly died at the city gates. “But the Archdemon had been in my nightmares for many months before Fort Drakon, and finally having the chance to face it was liberating. It was the chance to fulfill the duty I had accepted at Ostagar. If the Nightmare plucked that memory from _my_ mind then it chose poorly.”

“That might just be it then,” Connor suggested. “If you were thinking anything along the lines of, say: ‘ _Denerim was worse than this, if I could survive Fort Drakon then this will be easy,_ ’ then it would have seized on that and tried to frighten you. It’s not like we gave the demon much time to sit and put its strategy together.” Soren smiled softly at the attempt to swerve out of the current topic and move into a joke. Connor was either more comfortable speaking to him, or he was getting better at managing conversations.

“No, we certainly did not.” He accepted the diversion, taking them away from unpleasant memories. “But now that you’ve made substantial gains in both health and rank, I think it’s time I finally give you something you’ve wanted far, _far_ more than a pair of new gloves.”

In the short time it took Soren to reach into his desk for the paperwork, Archmage Guerrin had straightened up noticeably in his seat and his scarred eyes were watching very closely, trying to see over the edge of the desk. Soren would have scolded him for being too open with his eagerness, but held off. Let him enjoy the moment, he’d earned it.

“This will not happen again, Sergeant,” Soren warned him, placing _two_ sealed and readied scrolls out on his desk. “But you have a choice of assignments. The first is a journey to the Wending Wood with Warden Athras and both Warden Howes to attend the Halla festival you partook of last year. Keeper Lanaya will be placated by my absence if I send another skilled healer to attend the event, and I’m certain Nathaniel would appreciate having another human about.” Safe, familiar assignment. His familiarity with the Dalish clans in Amaranthine would serve him comfortably and well in the years to come if he cultivated it now. He would be home again before Summersend to continue looking after the Vigil’s needs.

“You won’t be attending again this year, Commander?” Connor asked him and Soren let himself frown outright at the question. Too blunt. His refusal had been _implied_.

“Keeper Lanaya is a wise and cultured woman, Warden,” He explained, sowing flattery as a means of teaching by example. “Her distrust of Andrastian society has strong and understandable roots in the abuse she suffered before finding the Dalish. I respect her very highly and value her friendship immensely… but the only polite topic I find less pleasant than marriage offers from the Fereldan Landsmeet are Dalish betrothal wreathes being flung at my head when I’m not looking.”

Connor pressed his lips thin. He was sitting very stiffly. He was trying not to laugh and doing only a satisfactory job of it.

“And the other one, sir?” His Warden asked the question with a great deal of self-control and Soren nodded, gesturing to the second scroll.

“Warden Hawke and four others will be departing from Vigil’s Keep in ten days to embark on a very important mission regarding the state and well-being of the Grey Warden Order.” Soren laid his hand down over the scroll, covering his mark on it. “This is one of those commands. I have already sorted out the arrangements for several other parties bound for Ansburg, Ayesleigh, and Antiva City, but Warden Hawke’s party will be going to Weisshaupt.” It was nice to have enough Wardens on hand for once to issue four well-equipped teams at the same time without emptying the Keep, it left enough ready arms to keep Amaranthine safe and Ferelden comfortably able to respond to any threats of taint or surface darkspawn.

“It is a long and difficult journey to Weisshaupt Fortress…” Connor spoke the words quietly and Soren nodded. He had never actually made the journey himself and had been tempted to take this task for his own, but he was still needed here in Ferelden. “But you wouldn’t offer it to me if you didn’t think I could do it, sir.”

“This is the only time I will allow you to choose like this, Warden,” Soren cautioned him again. “You will serve the Grey Wardens well whether you present yourself courteously to our Dalish allies or if you approach the First Warden on my behalf. I am not about to tell a man fresh on his feet again after a war to hike across the Anderfels for several months without giving him a say in the matter. Make your choice, Sergeant.”

“It’s not much of a choice at all, Commander.” Connor reached out and took the scroll that pleased him. Soren was not surprised. “Thank you, sir.” But he was very pleased.

“Dismissed, Warden.”

* * *

 

_Five months later, Early Winter of 9:44 Dragon, in the Mountains West of Weisshaupt Fortress…_

Arl Teagan Guerrin’s disgrace and loss of status after the Divine Conclave in Halamshiral was common news in the south by the time their ship made port in Cumberland.

The Inquisition, one of the most powerful and quick-to-rise forces in Southern Thedas, had collapsed on itself long before they reached the Nevarran boarder with Tevinter. Whether they’d disbanded completely or simply leashed themselves to Divine Victoria wasn’t clear from the rumours chasing the party northward.

The fate of the Grey Wardens after Corypheus’ manipulations still had no answer, and a consensus from the Warden Commanders of each respective nation was coming up quickly as the only way to obtain real stability again. With the lack of leadership for Orlais and the complete silence from Weisshaupt, the Warden Commander of Ferelden was taking bolder and faster steps to build the lines of communication from his office to the far points of the map. Carver’s mission was one part of that plan.

They moved to petition Weisshaupt Fortress and the First Warden directly, only to find that…

“Has it occurred to _anyone else-_ ” Connor said, his voice carrying in the dark cavern as he took a moment to really appreciate how _not good_ his current situation was. “That the First Warden _really maybe_ doesn’t want us around?” His hands were hurting, his legs were cramping, the rope was digging hard around his waist with bruising strength.

“Whatever gave you that smart idea?” Carver called down to him in the murky black, and Connor kept his gloved hands wrapped _tight_ around the taut rope he was _dangling_ from… “Do you see anything?”

“I see a big empty drop into the abyss.” A big empty drop that echoed and was dark and cold and not at all where he wanted to end up next. “Please don’t lose your grip.”

“And just _whose_ idea was this, again?” Hassick’s voice echoed in a mess against the walls of broken stonework and raw living mountain. “ _These steps went down! So the next switch must be down too! Only a mage can activate them!_ I think is what you said, Sergeant!”

“ _Please don’t lose your grip-_ ” he pleaded.

“ _Find the damn switch, Guerrin!_ ” Hassick yelled.

A Tevinter-era switch that would help light up the glyph which would trigger the mechanism to open the door to let them further into the ruins. Ruins they were only on this mountain going through because the First Warden’s envoy, Maker Forbid not the First Warden _himself_ , didn’t trust that they were who they said they were even though they’d brought Surana’s signature, seal, and documents stating that _they were all who they said they were_. So they’d been sent up the mountains looking for- what in Andraste’s Name were they here for again? Something about killing brigands hiding in the ruins?

“How much rope is left?”

“Do you need to go lower?” Evie called down and that was not a comfort when he could barely see three feet in any direction thanks to the glittering head of his staff igniting the dark from his shoulder.

“I see a platform!”

“Well land on it then, your armour’s fucking heavy!” Carver complained again.

“I am _not_ swinging on this rope!” Connor shouted back up at him. His voice echoed _forever_ in the dark.

He was much too far from any ledge or outcropping of stone to try and reach out if he fell. He had his boot stuck through a loop at the end of the rope and it was knotted around under his arms too, but Oh Sweet Andraste he did not feel safe. He couldn’t see the bottom. It wasn’t a pit, it was a ravine, like the shell of the mountain had risen up and clamped around the temple like a great mouth.

“A little lower…” Oh, Maker, give them the strength to winch him back up again! “I see it!”

“Throw fire at it and get back up here!” Sigrun yelled, stress in her voice as he heard scrambling far, far over his head.

Right. Now take hand off of rope. Go ahead. Remove hand from rope. Not both hands just one hand. He would take his hand _off_ the rope that was the only thing keeping him from dropping straight into a liquid black nothingness of sharp rocks and death. Let go of the rope and reach out to-

No he would fucking _not_ do that. He would not. Nope. Not happening.

“I could have been birthing Halla instead of-” Oh…

Oh.

Oh no.

_No, no, no._

_“Connor, hurry!”_

Get hand off rope, snap fingers and let the glove do the work. One ribbon of white lightning and the dusty old crystal orb ignited with a crackle of old, poorly aged magical ironwork.

“ _Pull me up!_ ” He shouted. There was a twisting something between his ears, a rustle under his skin that crawled up his bones and made his insides quake. His mind began to hum, his eyes weeping ashes of pale blue light. Darkspawn.

“ _Hassick get him up-_ ”

“ _Don’t just leave me with something like this!_ ” Many, many Darkspawn.

“Hassick! Pull me up!”

“ _Go near that rope and I-”_ Evie pull him the hell up!

“ _Don’t leave me down here!”_ He was gonna die, gonna die, gonna- “ _HAWKE!_ ”

He was going to die because Connor took his hand off the rope, pulled his staff off his back, and like an absolute moron of an Archmage gave the weapon a hard snap to get it spinning over the empty _nothingness_ below him. If he dropped it there would be no getting it back, and yet he spun it and he closed his eyes and then he let the staff _fall_.

He caught it by the haft, swung his whole arm up with his foot anchoring the rope so it wouldn’t swing so badly, and threw a prism of white light straight skyward. It reached the height of its rise, tipped forward and erupted in a shower of electric rays. Through the crashing thunder Connor felt the Darkspawn recoil briefly, and heard Carver’s shouting laughter as he threw himself into the fight.

“Well, don’t you have _spunk_ …” Sweet and Holy Maker who the _hell_ was close enough to talk to hi-? “Are you always this _strung-up_ or is this you _hanging about_ a bit?”

He was spinning now, congratulations to him for winning the worst prize in the world. Connor took his staff by a stronger grip near the head so he would _not_ drop it, pointing the crackling head towards the ledge with the switch he’d already struck. The others had only managed to pull him a few feet higher and that left him with a clear view of the platform now that he knew where to look.

There was a woman there- two women? His staff’s light caught off the edge of one’s jutting chest-piece, fur and iron armour cut around her body as she held the coiled length of an iron staff in one gloved hand, its bloodstone head glowing with more light to help him see who in the Maker’s Sight he was speaking to. She had short black and sinister turn of her thin lips, with no more details than that Connor could hardly make out.

The other woman was shorter, elven, also dark-haired but so slight and small in her outfit that had too few details for Connor to make out in the gloom. Scarves. Many scarves and many layers, good protection against the forever arid and cutting winds of the Anderfels. What the small one said in a lilting voice almost stopped his heart.

“Oh, Hawke, he’s a Warden alright.” She gasped in disappointment, small hands folded in front of her mouth. “Do you suppose he’s one of those hateful ones? Should we cut the rope before his friends realize what’s happened? Wouldn’t do to have another one of them cause trouble for us.” _Cut the rope!?_

“Hmm, quite the point you make-”

“ _Don’t you dare cut anyone loose!_ ” Connor _shrieked,_ pulling his staff back close to him and trying to make his sore, tense legs bend and inch him higher- _“HASSICK! Carver, get me out of here!”_

“What did he just-?” The elf gasped again.

“You took my pun, you broken laundry line.”

“It’s not a pun it’s a play on words and _Hawke!”_ Oh Maker Bless Him Connor started inching up again, the rope drawing itself up.

“Quit shouting,” the human woman told him sharply and Connor, dangling for his life over empty nothing, stuck his tongue out at her. She looked to her companion and then gestured away from their ledge. “I’d like to get a little closer, if you would be so kind.”

“ _Oh.”_ The elven woman sounded disappointed. “Well if you insist then there’s no harm I suppose. Don’t fall, please.”

Mages- haha, apostates, _brilliant_. The elven woman took a short staff Connor hadn’t been able to see in the darkness and ran her hands along the grain of the twisted wood, casting her spell down and making the stone at the edge of their platform crack and crumble, then stretch out with tangled, hardy wooden branches.

“You could stand to hoist a bit faster!” Connor called up through the dark, not sure what good there might have been in otherwise saying _‘Help, there are apostates down here who want to kill me!’_.

“You could stand to lose a few pounds, you _Arch-Pain-In-The-Ass!_ ”

The human woman was stomping across those branches and she was coming quickly towards him. Connor was rising steadily now and the branches started to twist and churn about to accommodate for that fact. No. Go away. He waved his staff at her to try and shoo the apostate back, but she ignored it completely.

“What is that?” She was staring at his staff-arm, his hand specifically, and Connor was not moving fast enough to- “On your wrist?”

“Go _away_ ,” He snapped at her. The elven woman sighed in disappointment and stated quietly that she could make the branches extend no further. Thank the _Maker,_ the intense one was standing directly under him now and Connor was glad to be away…

“No, I want a proper look at that.” What the hell did that mean? She took a deep breath, staff glowing, and: “ _CARVER HAWKE, ARE YOU FUCKING THIS MAGE AT NIGHT?”_

The line dropped six inches and Connor lost all of his dignity with the sound he made because of it. There was an outburst of wild yelling from the platform above where Hassick and Sigrun were screeching at Carver not to dare lose his grip like that again. For several heart-thrashing seconds, there was no response to the woman’s crass demand. Connor didn’t have the constitution to be angry or offended or make any sort of answer, he just didn’t want to _fall_.

Carver’s answer did not help:

“ _MARIAN HAWKE COULDN’T FIND THE HIGH GROUND TO JUDGE FROM BECAUSE SHE LET HER BOYFRIEND BLOW IT ALL UP.”_

_“IS THAT A YES?”_

_“IT’S A ‘WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED TO FIND YOU FLOATING IN THE ABYSS?’ ANSWER.”_

Please just pull him up please just pull him up please just- _oh, thank you…_

Connor reached the top, found Evie’s armoured hands there to grab him and drag his humiliated and shaking self away from the impossible fall, and crawled as _far_ from the edge as he could get. Hassick was collecting the rope and undoing the knots in it, Sigrun was standing next to Hawke at the edge watching him scream down into the darkness, and Evie was patient about expecting Connor to stand up again.

He took his flask from his belt, swallowed the burning mixture of brandies and sweet wines they’d come across further south, and understood better now why Carver’s flask always tasted like bad decisions and regret. He would have preferred coughing to sweetness right now.

“That bastard told me this thing would be good luck,” Connor gasped as he put the cap back on, showing Evie his wrist where a fine piece of red fabric had been stitched and then tied around the base of his glove. It had a patterned family crest on it and Carver had given it to him before they got off the ship from Amaranthine months ago. A lover’s favour, plain and simple. Evie wore hers around her neck and protected by her armour. “And then he fucking _dropped me_.”

“Do not fret, my dear,” she purred to him, a _little_ bit of mockery in her words. “I hit him very hard for it.”

“Thank you…” He felt a little better for being safe, the fallen Darkspawn corpses a non-issue to him as he stood there with the other three Wardens and listened to Carver shout down into the darkness.

“Why are you in the Anderfels!? _”_

“ _Because I thought the weather would be nice and the local fauna were said to be adorable!”_

 _“_ They’re _Darkspawn!_ ”

“ _‘Were said’, brother dear, not ‘actually so’!”_

“WILL YOU JUST GET UP HERE?”

“ _Why, aren’t you enjoying being the one to cast the shadow this time?”_

 _“_ Fuck you! I’m leaving!”

“ _To go fuck your little mage? Brother I can’t tell if I’m proud of you or aghast at the thought of-”_ Alright, no.

“Carver, if she says that about me one more time we’re leaving you here.” Carver actually seemed alarmed by this.

“I think he means he’s leaving you period.” Hassick’s contribution was _not necessary_ , and it prompted Carver to pick up a rock and throw it down into the dark at his sister, who called back profanities at him for the gesture.

“Is there not _one_ happy family in all of Ferelden?” Evie sighed, and Hassick gave a big grin and raised his hand. Jolly good for him, but that didn’t help the situation right now. “Carver, let us go find a way down there or wait for her to come up here. The door ahead should be unbarred by now thanks to the switch.”

“Did you hear that, you stubborn old witch?” Carver called back down at his sister. “I’m done talking to you! _Good-fucking-bye!_ ”

“ _Carver, wait!”_ Oh? That struck with a slightly different tone than before, and Carver did in fact hold the act of turning away. “ _Don’t do this.”_

“Don’t do what, sister?”

“ _Don’t kill them, Carver. Don’t make me fight you to protect them. You shouldn’t even be here!”_

“What are you talking about?” Carver took a knee again at the ledge, and there was enough magic glowing down by the Champion of Kirkwall that he possibly could see her. “We were sent here by Weisshaupt Fortress to run out bandits hiding in these ruins and clear the darkspawn. We’re on the Warden Commander of Ferelden’s orders to meet with the First Warden!”

“ _Darkspawn you’ll find plenty of, brother, but no bandits.”_ Marian Hawke’s voice drifted up to them through the shadows. “ _Don’t hurt them, Carver. They’re only children.”_ What? _“Don’t let the Grey Wardens use you like this.”_

“Marian?”

“ _Your order is dead in the Anderfels, brother. Go home, Carver, you’re the only one left with one now.”_

 _“_ Marian!” She didn’t answer Carver’s shout. The magic faded and Connor heard the stone cracking and crumbling as the branches fell away into the endless dark. “Sister! _Marian, come back!_ ”

“Eyes up, Wardens…” Sigrun’s voice was low and careful as she looked around them in the dark. The ground fell away at Carver’s knees but behind him and the rest of them were broken pillars and dark walls, faded mosaics of unknown persons and deities. Connor felt it in his bones and heard it humming wicked and sharp between his ears long before he really heard them coming. “We’ve got company.”

“And questions,” Connor added. He took his staff comfortably between both hands, Evie’s shoulders giving a stretch under her armour before her shield slid smooth and easy down over her arm.

“This is still more interesting than Halla rearing, wouldn’t you agree?” She asked him, and Connor nodded as he heard Hassick’s crossbow load up and ready behind him. The humming concentrated, it focused in such a way that… five, six… at least ten were on their way with more lurking further back.

“And no sand this time,” he let his staff head drop and spin, blue light weeping softly from its Paragon’s Lustre head. “Always a benefit.” At least it wasn’t the Western Approach.

“No dragon yet, either!” She laughed.

“Hawke, on your feet!” Sigrun barked, and Connor heard the metal of his boots scratching the broken tiles as he did as told. “Lead this company properly!” Connor took two slow, long strides back, opening up the space for Carver’s longsword as the tinted blade slid through the shadows and his helmet closed tight and ready around his face. The hard, grim line of his back and shoulders displayed his focus, and it was good to have him ready and at the front.

“Kill the vermin, find the Champion.” Carver grunted stubbornly, pulling one hand back to his belt and unhooking the silver body of his war-horn. “On my mark, ready?”

“I can feel an emissary,” Connor said, bringing the staff head back up and holding the threads of his first spell firm and ready between his curled fingers. Warmth bloomed and grew in his chest, Loyalty’s awareness drawn to him with cursory interest, paying quiet attention to his thoughts from beyond the Veil.

“Two small ones in my sights behind the statue.” Hassick’s voice.

“I’ve got the Captain’s back,” Sigrun was good to go.

“I want my blood-sport, Lieutenant!” Evie slammed the guard of her sword and face of her shield together for a loud crash.

“ _Wardens!_ ” Carver’s horn split the darkness, and the Grey Wardens rained hell down against the Blight.

**_End._ **

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s it! It’s done!
> 
> I’m gonna admit it, last chapter had a better “the end” ending, but I really wanted these three parts to make the final cut. I do have story ideas for both potential lines, but after a story like Disgrace it’s a lot to ask.
> 
> If I write something dealing with the Grey Wardens and the Anderfels then I need to get my hands on a copy of Last Flight first so I can see the Anderfels and Weisshaupt fortress for myself. It would also be solidly in DA4’s potential timeline and we so far still know nothing about that!
> 
> Anderfel story would be a Hawke-Family adventure with DA2 characters like Merrill, who we just saw a bit of! Connor would be present, but not the main character.
> 
> If I write something following up with Jylan’s family, the Dalish, and the joys of being elven in Thedas, then I need to make an Inquisitor I actually like and play through Trespasser because I still, sadly, have not done that.
> 
> Elf story would not include Connor because he’s in the Anderfels, and would focus on Soren and Jylan as the main characters. Lots of talk about racism and responses to trauma.
> 
> Leave a comment below on which of these two story ideas you’d find more interesting, and we’ll see what I come up with!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I actually finished Disgrace!!


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